Lightning Fervor
by Helltanz98
Summary: As the Light searches for the prophesized Harry Potter they butt heads with the forces of the system lord Raiden, even as far older forces begin to stir. The Galaxy prepares for war as earth struggles to find its path. Mass Crossover, under rewrite notice so chapters are subject to change. The rewrites for chapters 1-38 have been posted as June 2013
1. Chapter 1

Lightning Fervor

Chapter 1

Lightning Fervor

Helltanz's notes: This is the rewrite, translate Retcon, upgraded, of the original chapter, as with the original I can see the main problem for anyone who isn't a grammar nazi (to whom are warned ahead of time) that the chapters just aren't long enough.

Disclaimer: come on you should know the drill by now

– Chapter begin –

Prologue: The state of the galaxy

– scene break-

Sithis's Homeworld was located deep within the Perseus arm the Daedric lord Sithis ruled from his homeworld's massive Cathedral, deep deep within the territory of the Dread Father. Sithis's homeworld cut the stark contrast of many ancient city planets, a mix of wide nature preserves, and then massive crystal spire cityscapes.

Every year billions of pious souls wouldjourney to the capital from across the reaches of space coming from five different galaxies. Emissaries from more than seventy two major individual interstellar empires came to the Dread Father's court to plead their cause, as countless smaller polities did the same. The massive libraries of the great cities that recorded ancient wisdom, in addition to new information grew every day. Massive shipyards turned out hundreds of ships a year on the planet surface, which paled in the comparison to the massive network of structures in orbit.

To look upon all of this was to steal any mortal's breath way, such was the expanse of Sithis's domain... and yet... the dark god turned to the courtier,

"The little wyrmling's death is a surprise, my lord." He was saying, "Surely with it we could rally Sokar's force, strike an assassinate many of his rivals,"  
Sithis turned, "No, there are more pressing matters." The lizard like creature stumbled backwards, black robes ruffling as it moved, and it's god approached. "Ra's death is useful yes, but not worth a commitment at this time," Not when it risked attracting more attention. Ra's death already had all the signs of a higher power intervening as it was, the probabilities reeked of daedric meddling. Most likely Azura, but thus far there was no proof, and proof was all important in these things. Let the goa'uld squirm and wimper and in fight, the shard of his soul embedded into one system lord would be more than enough to guide things while his kin were able to do nothing about it. After all they hadn't been able to do anything about it for millenium as the shard grew. "Inform the black hand they will be convening tomorrow,"

Dark cloaks and dark armor ruffled quietly,as the other beings in the room shuffled. To put it into mortal terms the Black Hand in many ways was like a parliament, a king's council, a collection of various high ranking officials tasked with specific responsibilities. They convened regularly, but on a schedule, but could also, as was the case here, could also be convened by Sithis to deal with particular changes to various areas. Or as the case might end up being to counter another god's actions in the mortal realms as it were.

–scene break-

On the planet Oa the headquarters of the Green Lanterns, and the homeworld of the Guardians another important meeting was being convened. "The delicate balance of the galaxy has changed," The Guardian pronounced from his chair. It was here on the planet Oa in the Cygnus Arm that Green Lantern core was based, deep near the core of the galaxy the Green Lanterns protected thousands of worlds serving as the law for so many worlds on this side of the galactic divide. "The death of the Warlord Ra changes thing, his power to negate the paranatural energies of his foes, and keep peace amongst his kind no longer exists." The guardians of Oa, and their green lantern corp were not particularly fond of the goa'uld, not that they acted on such policing their swathe of the galaxy consumed much of their time and resources, and challenging the dominant power in the galaxy was foolish and wasteful.

The other guardians nodded, "It is true, without Ra we must face the possibility of the worst case scenario, a galactic war." The milky way was always a complicated place. "There is also the matter of the war between the Thanagarians, and their age old foes that we must also face. The war between them may attract the attention of those goa'uld who would seek to exploit this power vacuum to their own benefit."

"We must dispatch a Lantern to each of these empires to attempt to broker a resolution," Another proponed, "before the goa'uld can mobilize their forces. For now we have the time to take advantage the Warlord's enforced technological stagnation, that restriction will soon pass, and Ra's fleet will soon be divided amongst the goa'uld, swelling their ranks to numbers not seen in several centuries since the terrors of Sokar."

The Lanterns disliked remembering such times. A thousand years ago the Goa'uld Sokar and sworn to the great gods of the other realm a bringing of a new dawn. He'd pledged to several of the Daedra, terrible ancient beings of power, a new era would be ushered in. Offered oaths to them, and had marched against the system lords. It'd taken the combined mights of Ra, Apophis, and Cronus particularly, along with contributions from many other goa'uld to throw back Sokar's armies. The trio of system lords had finally beaten him and driven him into exile after both sides had expended much of their fleets.

"A single Lantern to either side will mean nothing to them, yet if we send a squadron it will seem to the warring factions we mean to declare war and force their compliance. Such a move would only further exasperate the situation. We must weigh the benefits of our actions carefully billions of lives depend upon our actions."

The first guardian to speak, did so yet again, "Ra's death has changed things, it would be in our best interest to reinforce our defenses. If the Corp were to be dispatched across the sector to spread word of a diplomatic summit aimed at insuring the peace than perhaps we could present a united front against any goa'uld who would seek to attack this region of space."

It was the most sound solution, an invitation to Oa was unheard of in the modern era. For such a summit to be called would surely bring all the powers together beneath the safety and impartiality of Oa's, and its Guardians', judgement. An attack upon this world was unheard of it, such had not happened in millions of years, violence that had been long ago, and that few remembered, and fewer still discussed. Those who bore responsibility for those attacks against Oa were pledged that they would not bring their warfleets against it, and no simple offering by those mortals who despised the Green Lantern Corp. and the Guardians with all their hearts would be able to stir the darkest of the ancestors to raise their hands. Without those powers involved nothing could challenge Oa's defenses. Not even the warfleet of the supreme system lord Ra of the Goa'uld Empire could challenge Oa's defenses.

"We are overlooking those who bear responsibility for the death of Ra, it was those of Earth's military who took his life. A world which has produced THREE Green Lanterns in such a short span of time," A guardian spoke up, it was beneath the guardians' notice that all three had come from the same nation on earth, "Earth's heroes have long done and struggled to complete good works, and we must consider their safety."  
"The Goa'uld do not know this, but if they were to attack the Earth, and the Green Lanterns who originate from that world will defend its innocents from the predations of the Goa'uld."

It took a moment for the other Guardians to consider the announcement, "A squadron of Green Lanterns would be well suited to insuring Earth's protection for the time being, and would adequately serve the interests of peace, and justice. It would also be good to grant some temporary relief to the Heroes of Earth."

Earth was the Ancestral Home to so many billions of sentient throughout the Galaxy, and it had produced so many Heroes in such a short time, but that was not the only consideration. "That is not the only concern. A fight over earth would bring darkness to the galaxy, an era of war unseen in millions of years since long before the Goa'uld were tainted by the screaming of a dying race, and a hunting god."

"We should consider speaking with the Aedra, while not impartial their wisdom is great..." The Aedra were the other side, a counterpart to Daedra their names bearing back to the Ancients of yore

"Their wisdom is great, but we must weigh their insights against attracting the attention of their darker kin."

Another Guardian nodded, "Then let us invite them as well, in peace, and hospitality. They will not permit their own to violate such a sacred covenant, and they too bear great wisdom. An insight which could assist us in our task to secure peace." The Guardian stopped for a moment, "there is however the concern voiced yet that, Ra's death was not entirely a simple act by humans from earth. There is implication that one of the Dark Gods meddled, whether it is true, or if it was done with or without mortal invitation is unknown.

It was thus in 1995 by the earth calendar that the Guardians, those who ruled Oa, set the stage for the largest galactic peace conference in the history of the milky way. It was at the same gathering that a squadron of Green Lanterns would be assigned to insure the protection of the Earth. A protection that would be circumvented by one earth trusted in the years to come.

–scene break-

Kandrakhar; This world held the dubious honor of bearing the hate of the last Ayelied, of Goa'uld, and of many humans, and many other sentient species. For all that they were hated by good and evil forces Kandrakhar bore responsibility for countless millions, and millions of lives, and a multitude of worlds. Though there domain was much smaller than that patrolled by the Green Lantern Corp each individual world was significantly better defended, and that was the subject of the debate. The Veil, it was the ancient and powerful arcane barrier that it was shielded all of Kandrakhar's domain from hostile predations of that which lay beyond.

"We must prepare for war!" A voice proclaimed to entirety of the council chambers.

"That is impossible," Another responded.

"The barrier protects us from our enemies outside," This was also true Kandrakhar's survival, and that of the worlds under its protection, had for countless thousands and thousands of years hinged upon its defenses that effectively negated the power of the enemy fleets. Without the ability to reach past the veil in numbers Kandrakhar's suzerain states could not be harmed by the various fleets which belonged to numerous powers. It was this which kept Kandrakhar independent. Without the Veil nothing substantial protected them. Few of the member worlds had anything resembling a space force, much less one capable of fending off the fleets of the Aedra or Daedra, or even holding back an assault sent Yu Huang Shang Ti of the Goa'uld Empire. Many times Kandrakhar had had statesmen petition for such, during the Terrors of Sokar a thousand years prior the goa'uld fiend's warriors had breached Kandrakhar's mighty defenses, but his armies had been too busy facing his kindred for his horde to do little but wreak havoc rather than endanger the whole realm.

"We have no Guardians at the moment, the heart has not chosen! We must ready our defenses to insure our safety and the safety of our people!" One of the councilmen declared, he cut a massive figure twelve feet, and pale white fur, massive shoulders, and a large round head. "Without the guardians, only the individual guards our worlds are ready, those are little good save to police common brigands." The councilman was entirely accurate, whilst Khandrakhar had access to limited stockpiles of, thousand year old, Goa'uld weapons amongst other technology they lacked the ability to produce it. For thousands of years the worlds had been a peace, and the Veil had insured that peace with the outside continued. Magic thrived, and science didn't because there was not motivation to advance many of the fields needed for breaking the Industrial barrier. For the few who had some kind of technological innovation there was likewise no inclination to develop further, especially since it made their fellow worlds nervous... and the fact Guardians tended to shrug off bullets, and directed energy weapons fire for anyone who decided to get uppity and challenge the status quo by force. No one in Khandrakhar wanted to go war, well no one sane that was.

-scene break-

The Sol system, named for its primary and only star house the world of Earth, which itself was a planet many, many watched though for many different reasons.

In North Africa there was a relatively new dig site in Egypt, what made it particularly interesting was its location relative to a temple of Ra, the Sun God. Wizards were always interested, always had been.

The summer of 1995 had actually been mild for Bill Weaslly and the temple complex actually was relatively cool, mostly as a result as it was intact, and being underground helped obviously. It was a temple complex that he'd found through carefully examining some of the most obscure records dating back to the very beginning of the middle kingdom. This was the find of the lifetime for either world; magical or muggle. Initial mapping and studying dated the temple at two BC, hieroglyphics proclaimed that in an act of benevolence Ra had brought down a shard of the Sun to the lands of the Pharaoh. There was also something regarding the tomb of Osiris, and Set's treachery marking this day. This in itself was interesting, and would have been a massive find on top of the temple complex, but there was also the massive metal, actually some kind of alloy, doorway decorated with symbols and paneling know one had any idea the meaning of, even though it looked like some dialect of Egyptian.

So naturally when someone opened the massive locked door, he wanted to ask, so he stepped forward, and realized just precisely what the other guy was wearing. He was dressed in black oriental style trousers and shirt, decorated with blockish spirals and lightning bolts. The way in the wizard world was was that the Chinese said Yu Huang Shang Ti arrived from Heaven birthed from a dragon, and unified the whole of the Middle Kingdom bringing into life the first civilization into the world. The Japanese claimed that their gods had lifted the home islands of Japan out of the sea. Everyone else had their own myths and legends. The Egyptians had claimed that Nut had from Chaos made the world... except that wasn't what some of the inscriptions with Ra's history here claimed. "can you read that?" It was a stupid question

The new guy chuckled darkly. In point of fact he wasn't a boy at all but the youthful form was one he preferred. "It was a very clever trick by Ra, a shielded location to hide your treasure, I really ought to thank the Tauri for killing you." He murmured, "As to your question Tauri, I can it is a particularly old form of the language of the Goa'uld. Ra favored it for his priests to know, and use, this tells of Anubis's betrayal and murder of Apep, many many years ago. Of course Ra neglects to include that it was Yu who hunted Anubis down and killed him in cold blood, but that was Ra's way. A dragon's fury when raised is nothing to take lightly." Emerald eyes and a lightning bolt scar, a scar that looked light it had been carved in, or burned. There was something about it that nagged at Bill. "I am Raiden Kami of the Storm, so much of this Galaxy speaks Goa'uld it is easy for one to forget there are so many dialects. Of course using it made it far too easy for someone to figure things out, no it was much better to use Alteran or Ayeleid dialects if you didn't want someone to figure something?"

"Um who are?" inquired Bill.

"Ignorance?" Raiden chimed eyes glowing bright, "They are the old ones, when stars were new born and all the galaxy was but an infant. Long ago before the terrible war in heaven split them apart divided them. Long ago there were four old races, the Asgard, the Nox, and furling. One of the ancients long ago hunted the Furling to extinction and the death scream birthed the new gods. Of them only Apep was kind and just, or so they say. Apep is long dead, he and his queen murdered by Anubis."

Bill gulped. Well that was morbid as anything, "I'm a curse breaker and archeologist working for Gringotts."

Raiden hmmed for a moment, "They say, the whisperings of the dark gods' servants, that one of the Tauri how participated in the slaying of Ra was an archeologist," He murmured slightly interested, "burned with in the fires of the splitting atom, with a weapon he himself had enhanced."

"Um you said Ra was dead err," The red headed wizard paused nervously, "had been killed did you mean the sun god Ra."

"Yes that Ra," Raiden said with a hint of disgust. "It occurred nearly a year ago his brother Apophis, and Cronus, especially have been steadily assimilating his dominion." Answered the system lord in a nonchalant tone, the funny thing had been how before Ra's death how Cronus had started a fight with Yu. The fight had not gone well, Yu's fleet had always been massive by Goa'uld standards, and well organized. Cronus powerful even by system lord standards still should have known better than such a head first assault. The beating Cronus had been given had only stopped after Ra's death, and Cronus begged to be allowed easier pickings. Yu had relented sweeping up a few more holdings in the process. The 'teen' turned and lifted his hand revealing black metal gauntlet with a blood red jewel in the center. He waved his hand in a complicated pattern the glove like thing glowed and the wall separated revealing a concealed trove of treasure. His face twisted into a scowl. "It would appear Ra did decide to put everything in here." Raiden walked forward towards the newly revealed treasure room.

Bill's eyes widened. This was again no minor find.

Raiden held up a glowing Zero point module, not that Bill had any idea what it was. "It would seem Ra did not know the devices potential, not so surprising." He murmured, "Ptah was really the only one besides Apep, and Anubis who truly understood these things amongst their kin."

Bill looked at the crystal wondering exactly what was so important about the crystal given the presence of the other items which appeared more valuable.

"I have no interest in Ra's other trinkets, my only concern is that this does not fall into irresponsible hands,"

"Why?"

It was such a simple question, an honest question "When a god who was on the winning side of the war of heaven demands you find something only a fool refuses," Raiden responded, "you are more than welcome to help yourself." The system lord vanished in what appeared to be bolt of lightning.

Bill blinked, and exhaled the breath he hadn't realized he was holding

His name was as he said best known outside of an isolated spiral arm was Raiden, a fusion of a piece of a god who had once been Harry Potter, of whose near adult form the hybrid being assumed, and the original magically sensitive goa'uld Raiden.

Wizards on this world would have been baffled at how such advanced soul magics could actually be put into practical use, then again they didn't stray into those magics often. On Nirn such had been poked and prodded more thoroughly, though now the secrets had been lost there since the ninth age, and all the terrible catclysms that had entailed.

Bill leaned back against a wall. On the one hand England was a mess right now, on the other there was a distinct lack of apparent gods in England.

– scene break-

Sol, Mars, Hinotama research facility

One of the five major research stations located on Mars or around it, The Hinotama, or Fire Gem was one of the most advanced Goa'uld labs in the galaxy, excluding those on board one of the massive Rashomon class ships. The other four were the Ark Facility, Phobos and Deimos, were actually entirely bases into them selves, and the fifth was the Pyramid facility, which was used primarily for energy research, it used the same kind of core as a Rashomon class as well. The only Goa'ulds' whose lab could rival these were Ptah, Thoth, Sokar, and the departed, and not missed, Anubis.

The Hinotama was your basic, if you could call it that, it was not designated to any one particular field, it also served as where Raiden stashed all the various devices before they were shipped off to their appropriate locations, the ZPM would be checked and then likely sent off to one of Raiden's ships or a planet/ That was assuming Sithis didn't decide to ship it off somewhere, it might even be sent to one of the City ships.

Thousands of years of preparation, and Ra had managed to get himself killed by the humans of Earth before Raiden had been able to implement his plan, it really was an annoying, if at the same time fortuitous turn of events. Sithis warned of potential interference may have been involved, but without proof...

IF he had had to kill Ra himself then it would have involved going to war against the supreme system lord and that would have been a problem.

Fighting an open conflict with Ra would have been a costly fight, after all despite some decisions Ra was still a dangerous enemy. No Ra might have gotten complacent over the years, but a real fight would have been costly.

– scene break-

It was two years later that in the United States of America's top secret NORAD facility, within the Cheyenne Mountain complex in Colorado which also housed, the Stargate Command. It was also the facility currently welcoming not three but five of the Goa'uld System Lords.

"I thought we were only having three Gou'uld." O'Neill muttered. "Geez, you think Thor could have told us." As he looked over the five. Yu Huang Shang Ti, who according to Daniel, and Thor was the pro earth Goa'uld. Cronus was supposed to be Neutral... supposedly. While of the original three Nirrti was the one who opposed the whole thing.

So now they had two other guys.

"That was our original intention Slayer of Ra. However certain event among the system lords have lead to the need for the addition of additional representatives." Stated Raiden steeping forward. "You have the system lords thanks Carter-sa" Raiden paused before correcting himself. "-taisho for slaying Setesh. Were Ra still alive I would think he would reward you handsomely for ridding the galaxy of such a criminal." continued Raiden inclining his head toward Carter, according to modern break down it was an incorrect use but Daniel didn't feel like pissing off the System Lords today. "As well as you have my personal thanks O'neil-dono for slaying Ra." Raiden inclined his head slightly lower than he had for Carter.

The gesture wasn't lost on Carter who had spent two years stationed in Yokohama.

Daniel pretty dragged the rest of SG 1 into one of the more private meeting room in the SGC. "Alright the information on our other two guests the first one is Raiden, also called Raijin, god of lighting and thunder, he is typically shown as demon so at sometime he may have used an Unas as host. According to the Asgard Raiden is one of the most powerful Goa'uld, especially in the areas of technology in fact according to the Asgard his technology is in fact on par with the newer Asgard technologies. "

Thor nodded, "We have reason to believe Raiden has great success in back engineering Ancient technology."

"That's not good." Jack added unnecessarily, "So why is he here?"  
Daniel looked up, "He's Yu's ally. They're two of the major members of one of the coalitions of System Lords, apparently there was some hope for Heru-ur come seeing as he's allied with Cronus, but got stuck with Moloc, who is one of Nirrti's allies. "

"Well thats just great,"

General Hammond raised a hand, "Its there anything else we should know doctor Jackson? Perhaps there is something you could share with us Teal'c?"

"Daniel Jackson is correct Raiden and Yu both claimed only small pieces of Ra's territories as their own and systematically crushed any opposition from Apophis however neither of them made a move to claim it all. Their alliance is seen as strange by other Goa'uld, afters Sokar's rise they consolidated their holdings have remained steadfast in alliance with each other."

Daniel nodded, "Moloc is more what we're used to?"  
"Moloc is an abomination." Teal'c added, "For many years he has had the female infants of all Jaffa burned in the fires of his temples,"  
"Yeah, I was getting to that." Daniel remarked. "Asgard intelligence says Moloc is the weakest militarily of the System Lords, his continued prescence is largely a result of Ra's demise."  
"We largely expect Moloc to be eliminated in the coming years as the more established system lords consolidate their forces, and advance." Thor remarked. "Without the safeguard of Ra's reign enforcing peace on the other system lords we expect the goa'uld to have mobilized for war within the year."

"What do you mean?"  
The Asgard Supreme Commander activated his holographic projector, "Heru-ur has recently completed a series of capital ship vessels at his primary orbital shipyards, and Raiden has also hastened his introduction of new ship classes. Yu has joined him in accelerating the introduction of a new model Ha'tak."

-scene break-

The Council room set aside for this meeting was currently playing host to the most ridiculous show in the universe, "Hold on you expect us to-" That was about as far as Jack's interuption got before the Goa'uld had started shouting.

"Enough!" Raiden roared, slamming his hands into the table the move cracked the hard fiberglass, but the collection of system lords didn't particularly seem to notice. "The Tauri representative is obviously not familiar with the appropriate procedure of these hearings."

"His ignorance is no excuse!" Moloc proclaimed, "We have agreed to these negotiations-"  
"You agreed to nothing, you were brought along simply to round out the necessity of position. You are an embarrassment to the System Lords,"

"We will recess until the Tauri have submitted a written apology." Stated Yu reaching a hand out to grab Raiden's sleeve, "Violence is unacceptable here."

"What just happened?" asked Daniel

"Apparently we said hello, insulted each other, and broke for recess." Replied Jack matter of factly, "Which is perfectly fine by me, though I'd have liked it if they'd started strangling each other, so who's up for a coffee and snack break?" Jack's wish for a strangling wasn't far off for what happened later after Cronus had been attacked. It was fortunate for things in a way, as it proved that Teal'c hadn't been responsible. Sam had patched up the bastard, Cronus was still stuck in the ICU.

Yu looked pretty pissed, especially for a stoic old bastard, "YOU! You have been hiding this technology, against the by laws of the council with regards to technology that could be used to defeat the Reetu." Yu continued his diatribe furiously, "It has been well known you have always desired Cronus territory, by doing this you now have endangered our delicate relationship with the Asgard." Yu roared making an attempt to seize Nirrti.

Nirti managed to get away fading from view, and ran off. The now cloaked system lord slammed into an airman seizing the M-16 from the guard.

An armed goa'uld would have been an issue save for the sudden rippling of lightning, "Amazing your phase cloak fails to secure from magic, though I should imagine that would be difficult given Ra's pogrom against your subjects,"

Carter groaned at the statement, "Magic really?"

"Your skepticism is unwarranted," Yu commented, "none the less with Nirrti seized, and dealt with this conference is concluded,"

A group of airmen joined General Hammond and SG1 escorting the system lords to the stargate.

"Nirti's so gonna get it." Daniel remarked

"My heart bleeds." Muttered O'neill as SG-1, the System lords, and General Hammond walked in to the gate room as the gate dialed. The Stargate activated with a massive whoosh.

"We have come to a decision." Cronus commented irritably squeezing Nirrti, Moloc scowled.

"And?" O'neill asked, "What kind of decision?"

"The Tauri will be allowed to retain both of their stargates, however we do not guarantee any leniency will be given to any of the Tauri apprehended off world." Cronus snarled turning around and sweeping through the stargate's event horizon, with Nirti in tow. Moloc followed quickly.

Yu turned, "Cronus, rightfully, feels he is in your debt for you saving him," The old goa'uld stated, "it is something to consider."

Raiden nodded, "It is saying something considering his habit for being prideful, Sokar has returned now, and I will warn you now of the system lords that can challenge the Asgard's bluff Anubis, who has begun to mass his forces now that Ra is gone, and Apophis weakened, along with his vassal Baal prepare for war. Lord Yu, and myself also are among those strong enough against the Asgard warships, it is unlikely you have anything to fear from Yu Huang Shang Ti among the system lords he perhaps the most pro-Tauri, Baal despite being the weakest of those I have named is the most dangerous to your world. Sokar despite his persona is also quite pro-Tauri, though I will not say why save that his interest in your world is great." Raiden shrugged, "You will find this galaxy may soon be embroiled in civil war, for the first time in a very long memory." The system lord shrugged, "The system lords fracture into camps, and isolated individuals, you should be wary."

– scene break-

Well Sokar certainly hadn't been happy to see them, and had promptly tossed them all to freaking planet hell, after that it'd been one miserable thing after another, "You do realize that we aren't to happy to see you." O'Neill said looking at the former system lord, Apohpis. Apophis who had been imprisoned here by Sokar after Heru-ur and Sokar had split Apophis's domain.

Apophis smirked "Your insolence is music to my ears." Aphophis suddenly doubles over a blade, a sword, long and european in styling protruded from his stomach.

Sokar smiled, and that was terrifying, "I find it most pleasing as well." Behind the system lord stood another goa'uld, this one in dark black and red armor.

"What are you doing here?"

Sokar's face twisted apparently a bit irked at the ingraditude "Insuring that you do not die needless deaths as that your Tokra 'friend' has already abandoned you as soon as Raiden's fleet dropped out of hyperspace."

"Is he fighting you?" Selmak perked ignoring the Tokra comment. As Tok'ra his first concern was always gathering information. That was all he got before they suddenly reappeared in Sokar's throne room on his capital.

"Of course not you miserable little worm, Yu may dislike this alliance we all however concur that should Anubis return, and all other possibilities presented this is the keenest move."

Jack held up his hands, "wow you said Raiden brought a fleet, friends don't bring fleets full of big honking space guns unless you two are planning to kill something."

"A reasonable extrapolation. Sithis has demanded Raiden turn over the Potentia he seized from Ra to my possession." Sokar commented, "Your assumption is not incorrect thought we fully expect a battle to break." The 'devil' took a moment to twist the blade in Apophis's side.

"Sithis is who exactly?"

"The god of death, the father of all. Ancient and terrible."  
Jack facepalmed, "is he a goa'uld by chance?"  
"No, he's a myth." Selmak commented with a sneer. "A thousand years ago Sokar rallied the largest army seen in thousands of years, and plunged the Goa'uld into civil war. He preached fire and death and new dawn in the name of the high gods of the ancients, and how he as their emissary would bring fire to the damned and destroy their enemies. It was an excuse for countless worlds burning."

"The Tok'ra are ignorant because Ra made it a point to insure he killed all of Egeria's spawn with magic," Sokar responded, "The Daedra stir, and with them the Aedra as well, war is coming."

- scene break-

Chapter conclusion

Helltanz's notes: Chapter two may or may not be rewriten


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Lightning Fervor

Helltanz's notes: This is the rewritten chapter 2

Disclaimer: See previous chapter

-Chapter begin-

The Goa'uld were ambitious, it was their ambition, of course good fortune that they'd been able conquer the bulk of the galaxy. Like many had been affected by the genocides that had been caused by the forces which belonged to powers, which predated them. Like many ambitious grasping powers they didn't like to discuss such things. Magic was something the Goa'uld by and large were only familiar with in passing. Unlike humans they were relatively long lived, but magic was largely missing.

Why? Because even though Ra had found Earth, or rather because Ra had been the one to find that strange little world was the reason magic wasn't prevalent. Anubis had born great magical talent, but also great insanity. Sokar was also magically adept, to a far lesser extent than Anubis. Cronus and Apophis had no such talent, but Ra had something that made him distinct. Ra had ruled for ten thousand years because his ability was to negate the magic of others. Wizards on earth would have called him an abomination, on Nirn he would have been called a curse from the gods, and so on across the worlds. Ra was a spark that that had become the fire to choke the others out.

There was another side effect of goa'uld ambition they tended to try, and try very hard, to keep their population static. It was a measure insure to no one rose to challenge those already in power. Due to this measure Goa'uld with the capacity to use magic were quite rare, and those that did posses were not to keen on allowing the numbers to grow. Yu Huang Shang Ti watched his sons carefully, and many other goa'uld did far worse things than just watch.

For the bulk of those Goa'uld who did possess magic of course did have one goal in common with each other. They did actually wish to achieve godhood or something of similar status. It was an attempt not unlike what the Daedra so long ago had sought to do, though without the same level of results.

Unlike the ultimate cause of the downfall of the Ayelied the Goa'uld System Lords who had magic hadn't had rivals who could really oppose. They did however have more infighting amongst their numbers. The Daedra had been united against a common foe, but those Goa'uld hadn't had the luxury.

Fighting amongst themselves and the lesser results had done some damage to them, this of course caused them some problems. Certain members had fought each other over differences in opinion depleting vast armies of Jaffa in attempts to kill each other, while others had simply vanished.

Raiden had been apart of the group who had attempted to acquire godhood. The original Goa'uld Raiden had possessed magic, the hybrid entity, the fusion of two souls, likewise had possessed the power. He like both of the souls sought power. That he could gain it from the Daedric lord all the better from him.

Ultimately the lack of results, though it had had some success in strengthening the Goa'uld who had participated, had also had far less effects on the physical forms of the goa'uld. By contrast the Daedra and Aedra who had undertaken similar rituals with far great success had seen their physical forms change quite a bit.

Raiden smoothed his clothes, of course his hybrid body was still very different but that meant very little of course.

At present the galaxy that the humans of Earth, the first world, called the Milky Way was in turmoil. Ra's death had seriously destabilized the balance of power between the goa'uld system lords. The status quo though, that had kept everyone from moving, it'd taken some time to be sure Ra was actually dead.

Now was the time to act, for both of them, it was time to begin the next stage of things after all things were at last coming together. If one could call it that rallying the numbers of troops had taken time, and building ships took weeks and weeks. After all to go to warfooting would provoke the attention of the bulk of the other system lords. That Sokar had returned had caught the bulk of the System Lords unaware.

– scene break-

Off the coast of Europe north of the British isles there was an island. The Isle of Azkaban was the highest security wizarding prison on the entire planet its maximum security cellblock was deemed to be impenetrable, and impossible to escape from

It was this maximum security cell block which was used to house the members of Lord Voldermort's, otherwise known as He must not be named, also known as Thomas Marvolo Riddle nee Gaunt, most dangerous followers ,his inner circle that were imprisoned by the ministry of magic of England.

Sirius Black was amongst those imprisoned, even though he was innocent of the crimes accused. Though not for lack of trying with regards to the murder of Peter when he looked up to see the dementors were retreating and fast he was notably confused, and quite concerned. He'd thought for a moment he'd been dreaming, he'd been dreaming of that a lot lately, which was odd. These weren't fitful nightmares, just weird things.

One of these more recurring dreams was of a strange man who stepped out of the shadows stepped a man dressed in dark purple Japanese clothes. The man would ask always who he was. Sirius would tell him, and the man would introduce himself, and proclaim that he was a killer of men, and a vassal of a god, a general in the god's army. The man in his dreams claimed his name Makoto Shiso, and that he was the second Hitokiri of the Inshin Shishi.

Sirius didn't know what to think of such dreams. The dreams always started the same but subtly changed, sometimes they would talk other times some else would come with him. Shiso liked to talk, to proclaim how magnificent a terror his god was. How Raiden had two faces, and how the other face was grim and terrible.

Sirius hated that part. Hated as Shiso issued the name of the dark god Sithis. The wizard world knew of many gods, but the purebloods remembered dragon fire, and Lilith's warning of the other Old Gods. How Sithis had sired from the aether a new dawn, and brought a war to heaven.

Shiso despised it when Sirius objected to this, took insult to when Sirius insulted Raiden. Shiso wasn't the only one. Another 'warlord' was amongst the other visitors in his dreams. Amongst these was a man named Cale, there was a politeness, an honest politeness that Shiso lacked. Cale served an Emperor who in turn pledged fealty to the god. Cale thought, and Sirius agreed, that Shiso was arrogant. Cale did not however come as frequently.

This though was not a dream, and the man standing here was not one of those two, Sirius wondered though if it might still be a dream. "Who are you?

The man, if he really was one, was fair haired, and blue eyed, "I am but an image mortal man, and I cannot stay here long. My brother, dear Sithis will know soon of my men's presence to free you. I am Stendarr, and your imprisonment is an affront to justice, but I cannot free you just for that. Tiberius here will set you loose, and tell you all of what you should know."

Another man stepped forward, and brought the cell door crashing down. Sirius stepped the hell out of the cell quickly because when an ancient god comes to break you out of prison, and tells you his brother, arguably the darkest of the dark and god of death and stuff will know soon, you want to leave quickly. So thus Sirius did not need telling twice to hurry up.

-scene break-

Earth, Europe For centuries deep in northern Scotland Hogwarts school of wizardry and witchcraft had been the premiere institution of magical education in the United Kingdom. Now the school had yet another purpose, in this case as the makeshift Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix. The order had been formed to counter Voldemort's first rise, and had been revived in hopes of heading off a secret reign of terror.

Amongst the wizards of Earth Albus Dumbledore was particularly powerful, not simply in raw power but also in regards to the information network that he had access to. Unfortunately the long even for a wizard time that he had power had also somewhat convinced him his plans were always right. "By now I am sure you have all heard that Sirius Black has escaped Azkaban, however there is still some light in this other wise grim day." He announced to the other assembled, it had been  
"What do you mean Albus?" asked the Weasly matriarch.

Albus Dumbledore smiled, "According to Mister Fletcher's," and Alastor's sources, not that he'd say that to all them Alastor wanted his help kept on the 'down low' as it were, and Albus would oblige his old friend... even though this whole secrecy thing was a bit overblown. "sources Harry should be in New York today as he seems to always visit this time of month, we have to find him and ensure his protection." Stated Albus in his best leader voice. "Now as I told everyone roughly seventeen years ago Voldemort attacked the Potter family in their home in Godric's Hollow," everyone had heard the story, though Dumbledore made a habit of recounting it. Dumbledore's expertise in magic had allowed everyone who cared to watch see what happened at Godric's Hollow on that fateful October 31st. Dumbledore had also sent Hagrid to find Harry, but it'd been too late the House had been wiped away in the backlash of a burning swirl of magic. Still Dumbledore told the story of what had happened up till that, and then produced the picture. Harry looked a little older in the picture than he should have, but not terribly so.

Finally Alastor took the time to speak up, "Albus you should leave the boy alone, I did some checking the Japanese ministry adores him," commented a raspy voice. "as well as he holds a very high position within their government," which anyone with common sense should have immediately known was weird. Conservative defined the Japanese Government, and people. You weren't seventeen and holding a position even if you inherited it, it just didn't happen."if we try and force him to go any where against his will Japan will do something about it." Warned Mad Eye.

Albus shook his head, "Now Alastor we have discussed this, while I'm sure our Japanese counterparts have all the best intentions with Sirius Black on the loose and Voldemort growing stronger I think now is the time for action.

-scene break-

The meeting in question was across the pond, as it were, in United States of America's famous New York City, on the top floor of one of the Big Apple's major corporate fixtures. Though no were near the reach or influence of LexCorp, Stark or Wayne Industries the Zaibatsu's American branch was nothing to sneer at following OsCorp for the next slot in the Big Apple. The Corporation, like many of those big corps had another side to it.

Not that Raiden, and lieutenant cared for such a supposed moral quandries. The system lord and Oroku Saki stood alone in the meeting chamber, Raiden sitting where the leader of the Foot usually sat this time dressed in black Japanese trousers and shirt decorated with clouds. The system lord had more pressing things on his mind, years and years ago the Goa'uld had come across the Umtrom a technologically advanced civilization. This had been during Ra's reign and while not a threat directly the Umtrom had supplied rebels with technology. "Saki I am growing impatient I want the Umtrom on this world dead." The system lord paused. The Umtrom were an alien race that was more or less on the brink of extinction but their tech was still significant to in theory challenge the dominance of the Goa'uld Empire... if someone could get a hold of it, and back engineer it. "no ignore that I want them exterminated." A thousand years ago one rebel had used an Umtrom energy generator to destroy one of his fiefs, and amongst the many things a system lord was good at was holding a grudge. "I mean it I want them to be sent to the Shinigami now." He commanded "I am growing tired of your incompetence." He snarled, though were so close to victory over the last of the Umtrom. The Goa'uld had burned their homeworld from orbit, wiped out all known pockets of resistance except one... Earth.

"Please give me a little more time master Raiden." Begged the Shredder kneeling on the floor, his head laid against the tattami mats. He'd been busy, hunting his enemies for centuries and he did want amongst many things to find them, but..."There is no need for you to become involved and engage in a confrontation with the Asgard."

"Perhaps you still care and that is what is holding you back." Whispered Raiden cruelly aether singed the air.

"No master." Interjected the head of the foot ninja raising his head.

"Do not interrupt me Saki," Snapped Raiden eyes flaring as magic pulsed through his body. "You forget you are no longer Ch'rell you are Oroku Saki leader of the foot and one of my loyal vassal and," he paused standing, "and my ear amongst the Tauri. Do not forget that. Nor should you forget that I have other ears amongst earth," Eyes blackened and glowed, "There are yet the rosencrucian, and the dark brotherhood." The voice was similiar but not quite the same the tones, and accents were different emphasis put on different sounds, and syllables. This was Sithis talking now, and Sithis cared nothing for the Asgard, and even less about the Umtrom.

His subordinate nodded, "I have not forgotten master, please all I ask is a little more time." Begged the Shredder.

The glowing black in his eyes faded, but the glare did not lessen. "Fine, however if you have not destroyed them by New years I will have Talpa dispatch you aide whether you like it or not."

"Yes master. Thank you, you are most gracious." Saki did not like it, but it was the best that could be done. Talpa was a conceitted bastard, furious that his own agendas had been stalled, and cancelled in the wake of recent issues on Earth. The invasion a few years ago had derailed Talpa's hopes to manifest his own plans, and the 'dark emperor' was still fuming over it.

"Onto other matters, there is-" Whatever Raiden was going to say was cut off by the sudden and vocal outcry of Hun, the Shredder's rather large and brawny head of the street criminal portion of operations here in new york. The man for some reason had begun yelling.

Outside the meeting room which Oroku Saki, and the System lord occupied a few minutes prior Hun, and Stockman, another of the Shredder's employees, had been gossiping over what they were overhearing. "Oh man master Shredder is really getting yelled at." Said Hun wincing in sympathy or empathy for their superior.

"Thank you for stating the obvious you great lummick." Snarled Baxter Stockman, the doctor failed to mention he enjoyed hearing the great Oroku Saki be humbled, more than likely that would just have made Hun angry. Hun was absurdly over protective of, and always hoping to curry favor with the boss.

"Hey I have an idea." Annouced the leader of the purple dragons.

The doctor scowled, this had better be good, he thought before responding, "What is it you buffoon." Growled Stockman. Hun having ideas always made trouble Stockman claimed, it was entirely true, but it was close enough for the scientist's tastes.

"Well Lord Raiden's real pissed right now, right." Hun remarked jerking his head in the direction of the irritated magical god.

"Despite your use of such plebian terminology your assessment is correct, Lord Raiden would seem to be most incensed at the moment, continue." Stockman stated gesturing for the larger man to carry on. Raiden, and Saki shared at times a rather volotile impatience.

The leader of the purple dragon street gang nodded, "So we tell Karai lord Raiden wants to see her and he gets mad and takes it out on her." Finished Hun sounding quite proud of himself. Strictly speaking the idea was not horrible, it was stupid but not nearly as bad as Stockman would claim

"Are you insane I know you don't often but use the thing inside that thick skull of your that is not dust or bone." Shrieked Stockman in utter terror. "That is the stupidest and most suicidal plan I have ever heard. Both master Shredder and Lord Raiden adore that little Samurai."

"Ninja." Corrected Hun raising a meaty hand at the point.

"Wench," Stockman continued one ignoring the correction. He didn't give a damn about that particular point of contention she ran around with swords it was close enough for his tastes. "and if they caught us well master Shredder probably wouldn't get his turn to punish us Lord Raiden will turn us into living lightning rods for attempting to trick his precious Karai and master Shredder wouldn't much happier." Babbeled the doctor.

There was a knock on the door.

"Come in." Stockman grumbled shivering fiercly at the very idea of pissing off their immortal boss. There was good reason for this all had seen that Raiden considered his normal idea of responding to those who put him in a bad mood to tossing lightning at the offending party. It was distinctly unpleasant to watch, and no doubt worse to be on the receiving end.

Albus Dumbledore, Severus Snape, Minerva McGonagall and Alastor Moody entered the penthouse office waiting room. Hun was not stupid he knew what European wizards wore in the company of each other. Robes and stuff like that. "I thought Lord Raiden wasn't meeting with the American ministry till tomorrow?" asked Hun to the doctor a little louder than he had intended. The actual meeting was of little importance itself but Raiden had agreed to it here in New York because he hadn't wanted to go to DC, and the American's hadn't wanted to meet in California.

"He's not," replied Stockman, he was of course up to date on the wizarding world, or at least Earth's wizarding world. "There not from the American ministry there British."  
"Ah yes I am Albus Dumbledore we are here for Harry Potter." Stated the old man.

"Get lost grandpa," Hun shrugged, sure Saki emphasized piety and treat old people with respect in public, but damn frankly he wasn't in the mood to deal with wizards they pissed him off. He cracked his knuckles "I don't know how you got in, but seeing as Lord Raiden will be busy for a while since he's chewing out master Saki at the moment I'll be more than happy to throw you out on your ass." Hun bluntly declared.

Stockman hit himself, repeatedly... in the face "moron." He muttered under his breath. Well so much for the easy way, still "What my esteemed colligue is trying to say is that Lord Raiden is far to occupied at the moment to see anyone given his busy secudule and recent events as well as the fact is to put as Hun here like to put things, bluntly that is, Lord Raiden doesn't like the United Kingdom so a meeting is highly unfeasible to resolve whatever or who ever it is you're looking for." It probably had something to do with one of the Celtic gods if Stockman were to guess, apparently Manannan was a dick, to use Hun's terminology."However if you would go through proper channels I am sure one of your gods could arrange a meeting, Morrigan perhaps." He suggested, naming the only goddess whose relation with the lightning god could be called amiable. "She certainly seems to be one of Lord Raiden's favorites at least at the moment." He added the last part more to himself... and by favorite he meant overly possessive of.

"Yeah well you're not welcome here so I'd suggest you leave." Stated a new voice as the sliding door to the side slid open and a taller man, which was saying something since Hun, and Stockman were by no means short, with pineapple hair stepped out..

"And who might you be?"

"Man forgot didn't I." He clasped his hand to his chest in a dramatic fashion,"I'm Sagara Sanosuke, vassal to the lightning god. I serve as General of earth, but if you'd like you can call me Zanza." Stated the big man

"Ignore the muscle bound idiot." Stated a second voice. "I am Shinamori Aoshi, Okashira of the Oniwanbanshu another of Lord Raiden vasals I to serve as one of his generals. I bring balance in all things,"

Hun grimaced, fucker, he thought irritably, the Shredder was the leader of one clan of ninjas, and this bastard happened to lead another. So naturally he didn't like him. They both vying for the big boss's compliments.

"Humph Potter's as arrogant as his father." Growled Severus Snape. "So where is the little shit," Minerva gave him a chiding look, and scowled.

"Look I don't where you get off big nose," Growled Sanosuke. "but whoever you're looking for isn't here, so get lost or Zanza's going to teach you a lesson you won't soon forget! So you going leave in one piece or missing a few!"

"I seriously doubt you muggles could hurt us." Sneered Snape cockily.

"You're arrogance will be the doom of you," Aoshi warned aether crackled in his veins as he shifted subtly.

This was the reason the leader of the purple dragons didn't like wizards, "I do hate to burst your bubble greaseball but." A chain made out of purple flame formed in Hun's hand. "Your going to be LEAVING!" Roared Hun, and that was were they were now, because intruding wizards, hostile wizards was not a good thing.

Back inside the meeting room the two leaders looked towards the door behind which the disturbance seemed to be occurring. Both felt the surge of heat, "That was Hun." Stated the Shredder needlessly.

"We will finish this discussion at a later time." Commented Raiden frowning, the Umtroms weren't launching a preemptive strike that much was apparent. It still did not explain what precisely was the cause of this interuption.

The leader of the foot ninja bowed. "Yes master"

The doors slid open. Long ago Raiden had secreted away many magic users. It hadn't been a particularly effective eugenics initiative so he'd abandonned it or rather discontinued it after the terrors of Sokar had finally ended. It just hadn't been working out, and while cloning had been an option it would have risked undue attention from Ra, something Raiden had hoped to avoid in those times. Oroku Saki and Raiden stepped out backed by a sizable continegent of Raiden's Jaffa guard.

"Oh shit hey master" greeted Hun a little slowly waving his hand stupidly as he stared and surpressed the urge to swallow. Jaffa were stronger than baseline humans, just a fact of genetic engineering, even without a prim'ta. Not that Hun wanted a snake in his gut, no he could pass on that.

"Lord Raiden." Greeted the Generals reverently.

"Jaffa H'tak Kree." Ordered Raiden his eyes flashing emerald the jaffa complied reading their weapons. Five hundred years ago Susanoo had raised his forces in war against Raiden's own domain, thinking to take advantage of the ongoing melee between many of the system lords. Susanoo had thrown human fanatics armed with guns into the frey. It was not that which caused Ra to force all to back down, but it had had a part. Susanoo had been censored publicly before the whole of System Lords, but his humans had been effective and Raiden remembered. He'd always been quick to adapt, but had had to do it carefully lest Ra become too irritable. So Raiden had largely issued his jaffa guard, his most elite Jaffa warriors, specialized plasma pistols, even going so far as to be genecoded to appropriate users in order to appease the Supreme System Lord's desire to maintain the status quo. Now that Ra was dead new things had quickly come out of the wood work, as it were.

- Chapter conclusion-

Helltanz's notes: it stops at the same place as the last edition stopped.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Lightning Fervor

Helltanz's notes: Nothing important

Disclaimer: See previous chapters

– Chapter begin-

The plasma pistols the Jaffa guard were carrying were different than the early first generation ones from centuries ago. Better suited, after all even now only his Jaffa Guard carried them. To be a member of one's god's elite guard, was to be a breed apart from all other Jaffa. Raiden deployed two such guards, these were his Lightning Guard meant to strike quickly and precisely, he expected of them great marksmanship, and lethal precision. He still even a few years after Ra's death to deploying a new primary weapon to his Jaffa guard... it irked him as Sokar had beaten him to it. Sokar trusted his guard with amazing weapons, trusted them to help him usher in many things. Terrible things.

It was right about that moment that Alastor Moody became very pale, unlike his compatriots he sensed the aura that surround Raiden, one he recognized far to well. There was a... taint, yes that was a good way of putting it. He glanced at the wall searching, curious, or rather paranoid, as to why he not sensed the rather noticeable daedric aura sooner. It should have been impossible the entire city, muggle or not, should have known. 'Why didn't I sense him sooner theres no way he should be able to contain or hide his aura like that is not possible his aura should blanket the entire building at least if not the whole city.' He then caught sight of two strips of paper, one on either side of the sliding door, on these long strips were sets of black hiragana characters, and then at the chain hanging around Raiden's neck. He did not need his magical eye to sense the powerful magic within the paper as he gazed at them and the magic radiating from whatever the chain connected to.

The jaffa spread out circling the wizards their weapons raised. Hun smirked while Baxter Stockman quickly moved behind the warriors. Baxter made no denials he was a coward he'd let the professional soldiers handle this. Fanatical samurai was probably a better term, Hun liked to call them street samurai all that honor and stuff and modern weapons in one package Hun didn't care, actually he wanted to be right there when the fighting started. He wanted to crack some heads.

Oroku Saki flanked the great system lord, standing to his lord's right. At Raiden's left hand stood Shinamori Aoshi, the prodigal Okashira of Oniwanbanshu, beside Aoshi stood the man known as Zanza, Sagara Sanosuke. Perhaps it was symbolic for both ninja masters to be on opposite sides, given how they vied for the attention.

"Ah Harry my name is Albus Dumbledore, I am here to take to a safe location in England its not safe for you here." Stated Dumbledore fully expecting Raiden to comply, after all he was quite used to getting his way and that people thought he was always right. It was an old man's arrogance.

Raiden's eyes flashed, a smirk formed it was clearly a very malevolent looking in its form; the appearance was the last thing of many Raiden's enemies saw, or rather the last things those who angered the being who wizards called Harry Potter, the last thing those who drew Sithis's annoyance to them. The thunder god was no longer here, evidenced by the black and green eyes.

"Albus get back," The scarred wizard growled, "the Japanese are the least of our worries we need to get out of here now." Growled moody, but even he recognized, on that instinctual level it was too late.

"What are you talking about Alastor?" he asked foolishly taking his eyes from the system lord... or rather the Daedric lord.

"Sithis." Snarled Moody, maybe the god of death's clothes would change, he couldn't imagine the Dark Brotherhood's grim and terrible dread father standing around wearing a shirt with clouds on them for very long.

"What was that Alastor?" asked Minerva not used to seeing the older Auror this scared, having not even seen him frightened when seeing the dark lord. Sithis was a myth though, not something Alastor Mad Eye Moody should have been concerned with. It was a myth from the old ages, when the wizards of old had lived with muggles.

"The dread father Sithis, the dark serpent god of Death is the so called boy standing before us." He elaborated. Long ago, thousands and thousands of years ago, Lilith had brought a warning to wizards of how the war in heaven had begun. A warning about the Aedra and the Daedra, that was what purebloods who stuck to the traditions remembered most, but there was something more than that.

There was a dark chuckling. "So you are able to recognize my aura even masked by a form that is so close to my true human countenance." The sclera of the system lord's eyes had turned black. "I would not expect any less of you, a Knight Templar of the Order of the nine. Alastor Maxamilion Moody." He greeted. "Still surely, surely my little brother would have offered to heal your eye, and your scars. Has not Stendarr not offered, but then I suppose he has been busy of late. He and Tiber both have been. Still Arkay, my little student doesn't have that excuse."

Dumbledore however did not pay any heed to the situation. "Also clearly this not a suitable environment for you to be growing up in."Sure he knew the legends but this this was absurd.

Then then there was burning cold. The prickling of flesh even through heavy clothes, "Be silent little man,"  
Moody wanted with every fiber of his being to do something, anything, throw Dumbledore to the ground clear of whatever was going to come, and it would come, hurl a spell any spell at the Daedra, flee, anything just not stand still. That was when it happened, Raiden fully ceased being Raiden. And the Daedra fully manifested. Sithis's human for was older, not old old, but stern, sterner than James Potter had ever looked, and yet you could still see even with the the black sclera instead of the normal white of most humanoids how similar they looked.

Sithis looked every bit the old grim father he was supposed to be, not the young boyish king Raiden had looked. "I am the dread father god of death. Mortal, and I have no patience for such incessant mewling,"

Some of Raiden's Jaffa knew what this was, a small handful of them realized, recognized. A tiny fraction had even seen it before, and knew how grim and terrible. For Jaffa, by Goa'uld standards, Raiden was a benevolent god, perhaps not the caring mother of all Morrigan was said to be, but a loved god none the less. Sithis... Sithis was Sokar's god, or one of them. For a thousand years Ra had cursed Sithis's name, for a thousand years merely uttering it in the prescence of the supreme system lord risked death. At the same time though Sithis had been the one to bring Raiden the ancient technology which the Raiden's demesne prospered from.

Hun in a moment of stupid bravery stepped forward, it wasn't smart but at the same time there was a courage too it. Hun knew nothing of the Daedra, he knew something was wrong, the man was not stupid. Merely his ignorance prevented him from total silence. "I'll show you folks the door,"

-scene break-

Raiden's flagship, the Shinku Rai Tatsu, was presently in a , very, high Geo-synchronous Orbit. In this orbit it would pass over continental North America, specifically the headquarters in New York. Raiden reappeared on the pel'tak, or bridge, of his imposing flagship, there was an immense technological disparity between normal goa'uld technology and the technology of the Old Races like the Ancients.

His Jaffa who had appeared with him, were very glad to have him back.

"Was your trip unpleasant my lord?" asked an imposing man in extravagant ominously imposing dark Japanese clothes. The man who had greeted him was the Dark Emperor Talpa a dark wizard of feudal Japanese history who commanded the so called Dark Warlords.

Raiden employed him as a courtier, dealing with earth the majority of the time, while Raiden himself was occupied with things in the greater galaxy."It was somewhat of an annoyance Talpa." Replied Raiden looking out over the ships of his personal escort fleet. Large Type three Ha'tak attack ships were assembled in a circle around his flagship.

Talpa came to join him overlooking the fleet, it was bold, anyone other than the wizard or a select other few wouldn't have dared to approach so close. "I see,"

Unlike their older cousins, the flights one and flight two versions the type three's were circular more rounded in the design of their outer hull and also melded more gracefully the outer hull and the tetrahedron and while more expensive, but faster to produce, boasted vastly superior firepower over the older Ha'tak class ships of either model or chassis. Most of the system lords had begun swapping to the type two ha'tak, though at differing speeds.

There was however a fact about the type three which made it a vast improvement. It was built supporting other weapons besides the traditional staff cannons and main gun armament carried by the older model Ha'tak, they were also far more advanced technology speaking over even the fairly new type two. The Type two had been an improvement over the original Ha'tak design, demonstrating fully realized technologies pioneered in the original.

Other Goa'uld ships lay near by as well as sleek Goa'uld cruisers and destroyers as well as jet-black Alkesh type 2, slightly bigger more advanced capital ship versions of the traditional silver ship which served primarily as a long range fighter bomber. These 'type 2' Alkesh were known to most races as Goa'uld frigates, the Goa'uld called them cannon fodder, there only real use was heavy bombing assaults. Soon though they would be obsolete, no they were obsolete, just not phased out just yet.

Raiden still had a use for them, "How much longer?"

"Approximately twenty one minutes until the forces of Mot will exit hyper space, my lord, prior to that Lord Sokar and Lord Yu's forces should arrive with in eight to twelve minutes."

Raiden turned and moved to the center of the Pel'tak, and took his seat in his command chair. "Alright all ships go to level two battle stations raise CIWS ready fighter launch. Load forward missiles tubes on the Shinku Rai Tatsu with blink displacer equiped Hyohoshi Anti matter missiles." The word meant ice star, a pointless bit of poetry, but tradition none the less. The hope was to use the blink displacers to cripple Mot quickly before he could launch fighters. The technology was finicky, and unrefined, too easily interfered by radiation, and other such issues in battle.

"By your command." Stated the man bowing

The minor Goa'uld lord Mot was not someone Raiden particularly liked, really he would be doing Baal a favor by killing the cretin. "As soon as Mot's forces arrive destroy them." He commanded. It didn't matter to him what the Tauri had done to annoy Mot, not even a little bit. Mot was a nuisance. That the fool was bringing ships against a world so freshly admitted into the protected planets treaty was merely a demonstration of his stupidity.

"Yes my lord." The jaffa replied with the fervor typical of the Goa'uld's engineered warrior race.

As expected nine minutes later a hyperspace window arrived and some thirty odd Ha'tak plus a very imposing Command ship bearing the dark red and black markings of Sokar.

Sokar had supposedly died, after all no one had suspected that Ra was going to get killed by the Tauri of all people so it was better to keep an ace in the hole. So when Ra had died Sokar had made his own plans, well he couldn't kill Ra so he'd settle for killing Cronus, and Apophis. Sokar had started as soon as his forces had been ready, catching Apophis completely unprepared.

Three minutes later another thirty odd Ha'tak arrived also featuring a very imposing Command ship these bearing the marks of the first Chinese emperor.

"This is a great amount of overkill as the Tauri would say." Stated Raiden as he surveyed the assembled mass of Goa'uld ships. Mot was but a lowly underlord of Baal, he could not hope to match one system lord much three system lords.

"Blame the Asgard." Commented Sokar dismissively, he loved this little world with their fighting, and their industries, and their mechanical progress. How they tinkered, and toiled. Sokar was a covetous goa'uld, but he was also patient.

"Speaking of which there are twelve cloaked Asgard war ships only two are of the Beliskner cruiser class the others are most certainly battleship class vessels." It made no sense for the Asgard to leave it to them if they could bring so many ships to the system, but who could say perhaps the Asgard just wanted the goa'uld to bleed as a reminder to uphold the treaty.

"Is it not strange they have not greeted us?" Yu queried, he thought it rude, and improper but said little else.

"It matters little Mot's forces approach." Responded Sokar, "He has brought more than expected, curious," A pale hand played at the control, "their energy reading is... oddly high."

Indeed a hyperspace window open and a force numbering in excess of twenty ha'tak emerged. This was a bit more ships than Raiden had been expecting for a minor underlord of Baal.

"All ships level one battle stations scramble fighters and launch the missiles in forward tubes one to twenty eight at the portside ha'tak cluster. Target central cluster with the Lohengrins and Tanhausers one through four fire." At Raiden's command eight arcs of light composed of positron particles the beams shot straight through several Ha'tak before they had the chance to raise shields.

Meanwhile Sokar's forces had exploited the use of their cloaking technology and attacked Mot's unsuspecting flank resulting in devastating damage... just not as devastating as they'd hoped.

Yu's own mother ship was currently squaring off exchanging lethal blasts of energy with Mot's commander's Ha'tak. It wasn't likely to be a fair fight the Chinese Emperor's technology was far superior to anything Mot could hope to muster. Yet now that Mot's ships had raised shields they were taking the damage better than they should have. There was also the fact that... Mot should not have had twenty Type 2 Ha'taks that he could freely throw about like this.

"My lord our scanners indicate Lord Yu has powered his flagships main cannon and is preparing to fire." Announced one of the bridge officers.

Raiden gave a nearly imperceptible nod, it appeared that Yu wanted this matter dealt with quickly for some reason.

A massive column of energy later, the blast which pierced straight through the mother ship's shields, and into the ship with enough force to visibly push the ship back, the lead attack ship, or rather what was left that hadn't been destroyed by Yu's main gun, exploded. Oddly powerful shields or not the main gun of a mothership was far too much energy for any known type 2's shields to tank, especially one that had already been pounded down.

The surprising strength of the shields was a concern. It'd had reduced the already reduced effectiveness of the frigates.

"Well that was boring." Stated Raiden as twin beams of light arced of the port side of his flagship and shot straight through an enemy Alkesh and then destroyed an enemy Ha'tak class vessel. The type 3 Ha'tak on the other hand, well they were larger, and their reactors more powerful, as were their weapons and shields. So that was one bit of good news.

"My lord the remaining eight Ha'tak are attempting to flee using sub light engines should I relay the order to pursue them?" inquired another bridge officer. Raiden gave another nearly imperceptible nod.

The remains of Mot's attack force did not get very far and were quickly overtaken and destroyed by the forces of the three system lord. Larger engines meant more power to sublight.

"Well that upholds are end of the agreement with the Asgard." Commented Raiden tapping his fingers on his console.  
"Indeed you have upheld your portion of the agreement." Stated a newly materialized hologram of an Asgard, one Raiden was unfamiliar with, to all three of the system lords. "Now if you would kindly disembark I would like to have open dialogue with the System Lord known as Raiden." Stated the Asgard his ships disengaging their cloaking devices.

Raiden sighed having expected this.

Sokar's naturally gaunt visage contorted as he gritted his teeth biting back the urge to yell obscenities at the Asgard. The implied threat irked him, he despised such threat, except when he made them, then it was a completely different story.

Yu being older, if not by much as far as multi millennial beings went, was while still irritated by the Asgard remark did not show it. "We withdraw to outside of the Tauri home world's moon once you have completed your dialogue we will then leave with our ally." He stated.

The Asgard frowned but nodded "That is acceptable."

-Chapter conclusion

Helltanz's notes: Well that is the rewritten chapter three, not much change, mostly some expansion to clear up dialouge issues.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Lightning Fervor

Helltanz's notes: Any major 'Gundam' mobile suits will probably show up during the war with Anubis.

– Chapter Begin-

They were called the Unknown regions by the starfaring races for a reason, well something to that effect usually. Well the Asgard called it something else but that was another matter entirely.

The exact motivations of the wizards looking for him eluded Sithis as they hadn't realized it was him. It was a... problem.

Born as Harry Potter the effects of the killing curse had had effects that no one could have predicted and had forced him across time and space, not that even he knew about this after all he had only been one year old at the time. The rift that had formed in space time had existed briefly, and the radiation was largely non reactive with regards to biological material. The rift however had forced him across time and space millions of years into the past into the age when the 'Ancients' had been at their highest point. An age he remembered fondly, after all it had been the era he had ascended to godhood. Discovering the lost secrets of past ages of glory, it'd all been a glorious age to live in. To be completely his new era was boring, a respite yes, and a welcome one at times, but boring more so.

Wizard was the general term for those were those who had gained the ability to use magic through their own internal power. The beings known as the Ancients to the universe at large, for the most part, were extremely potent when it came to magic as well as being extremely advanced in regards to technology. Sithis, as he was known in his present form and as he had been then, had been raised amongst these specifically the Ayeleid branch of the Ancients. Earth's wizards were all ultimately nearly traceable to a single matrilineal line, Liliths. Thousands and thousands of years had meant all wizards on Earth were ultimately all related to her. There were very few exceptions, and that was how everyone liked it.

The ancients were an astoundingly arrogant, though extremely powerful breed of beings, who were assured of their own supremacy. That there DNA had ultimately lead to the development of wizards, and some of the other human half breeds on earth was mere testament to their potential rich blood. Sithis knew this Lilith had been brilliant, if inordinately unlucky when it came to research programs. She'd tried so had to counter his allies.

It had been the beings who would become known as the Daedra and their rivals the Aedra who would be responsible for the first fall of the Ancients, both Ayeleid and Alteran, in the Milky Way galaxy. Lilith hadn't yet seeded what would become modern wizards yet, no she'd fled to Pegasus with Ganos, and Moros amongst others alteran.

Sithis had ascended to godhood along with his allies millions of years ago, becoming the dark god he was today. Even as just a magic user with Ayeleid technology and his own magical ability he would have been able to live indefinitely but that hadn't been enough, and he had had time. Idles hands, and all.

Time had been exactly what had passed, and soon, relatively speaking of course, his plans would come to fruition and his plans could move to the next stage of his agenda. An agenda he'd been working on for so very long. The Daedra and Aedra after the end of the war had agreed that they would limit their direct influence solely to the one spiral arm of this galaxy unless asked by a lower life form to intervene or to dealing with their worshippers; they had become gods after all. It'd been hashed out with Ancients as well, a peace treaty, a foolish one.

Raiden, the original goa'uld personality not the present hybrid personality, had stumbled upon this spiral arm and thus had begun Sithis's plan to expand his influence it was a clever way of exploiting the agreement. It was why Sithis supplied Raiden with technology and of course the fragment of his soul which he had fused with the original goa'uld entity had allowed full understanding of that technology which was supplied, though there was still the matter of industrial base and numbers to put the technology into use.

The minglings of the goa'uld meant ultimately little not when their fleets lacked the ability to challenge the ancient powers. He was however concerned over which, if indeed it had been a, Daedra had had a hand in Ra's abrupt demise. Right now though he had other pressing issues.

The dark god rounded on the Speaker, one of the Earth's Dark Brotherhood chapter's Black Hand. "I sensed Stendarr's involvement despite his efforts to hide it. Tiber as well," Upjumped human bastard, and he meant that literally Akatosh's human bastard, and his little brother's protege had been a nuisance for thousands and thousands of years. Tiber was amongst the youngest of the Daedra, the closest to humanity, followed by Stendarr of course. It wasn't like Sithis didn't like humanity quite the opposite actually. "I don't know what my little brother intends with this meddling, but find who let him in the world, and watch them." There was no point in killing whomever was responsible, they were his brother's playthings what he wanted was to know why. There was power in knowing things, "You'll go to that miserable isle, and find out why."

The Speaker nodded, "Of course dread father it will be my honor to serve,"

"The wizards there are of a peculiar nonsensical ideology," Sithis said, unnecessarily he shouldn't have needed to tell one of his Black Hands for a world such a fact, but did so anyway. "they are Lilith's childer, and some have other," He uttered the word with a cold twinge to it, "flowing in them, many contributed one could say. It would best to remember that, that my brother, that Stendarr, and Tiber would interfere so brazenly speaks of support amongst mortal men."

"All mortal men must die."

"Of course Maegi," He responded, "all men must die, go to earth investigate, deliver death only when necessary. I will know." And he would any killed by a member of the brotherhood was a soul presented to him, what he didn't tell Maegi was that no doubt the other members of the Black Hand would watch Maegi closely.

Such jealous children.

– scene break-

The Milky way was largely dominated by the goa'uld, it helped the stargate network covered much of the galaxy. Most system lords though controlled swathes of astrographically close territory. This particular solar system was adjoined to the greater whole of Raiden's domain, and more to the ponit housed what was the first of the immense Construction and Command ships. The monstrous ship was called the Rashomon, and it was easily the largest ship class in Raiden's fleet. Well at least of the vessels Raiden had ordered to be built, primarily the ships of this class remained stationary in systems like this. The Rashomon was orbiting a massive ancient construction facility.

The Rashomon class was nearly eighty six miles in length and some eighty six miles wide and stood at a height of sixty four miles it was still dwarfed by the great Alteran ship. It was called in the ancient tongue Bairn, that it orbited around and where all Rashomon class vessels were built, in total due to the massive requirements of building such a vessel Raiden had ordered only twenty of the vessels built over a period of seven thousand years, all but eight of which were also in orbit around the Bairn.

To compare only Ra, Heru-ur, Ptah, Anubis, Sokar, and Yu had ships anywhere near this size. Ptah's great fortress ship dwarfed the Rashomon in size but it had not been seen in centuries, though his mobile construction ships were still known, and watched carefully. Anubis had vanished and most of his great ships destroyed, the same with Sokar. Yu's great ships were situated over his key worlds. Heru-ur kept his constantly moving producing ha'tak vessels for any who would pay him for such, and Heru-ur's vessels could produce such ships. Ra was dead those ships of his lost in the vacuum, with little indication where his were.

The Rashomon like the Shinku Rai Tatsu differed from Goa'uld aesthetics. The ships were large silver circular ellipses, serving as the primary hull with high towers and visible docks for the repairs of war ships. Heru-ur's mobile command ships were very similar, it had been said Heru-ur had inherited them ultimately from Apep through Ra. It would not have been surprising to find Apep had controlled a facility like the Bairn sometime during his reign.

At the center of the circular sphere like central body, which primarily consisted of hangars or weapon bays jutted massive central towers one going down the other shooting up towards the sky relatively speaking. Jutting off from the central body were additional docks and weapons platforms as well as sensor and auxiliary shield nodes.

Of course there was a very good explanation to the difference between the Rashomon class and traditional Goa'uld vessels and that was Sithis. Sithis had shown him the Bairn, it was probably the same way Apep had found his caches of ancient weapons thousands of years ago that was to say from an Old god.

"My lord Skyborne Calamity and Dark Heavens Harbinger have both dropped out of Hyperspace escorting the Selene," Announced one of the Jaffa bowing at the waist to show respect for his god. "Lady Artemis should be arriving momentarily." Raiden glanced at the Jaffa in acknowledgement, the jaffa really needn't have come but it was tradition.

Raiden's sensitive, augmented, ears had already detected Artemis grumbling about 'those damnable meddlesome Asgard'. He dismissed the Jaffa with a wave of a hand. He'd accepted Artemis for a single reason to annoy Cronus, and well possibly snatch up Cronus's domain if the opportunity arose.

Artemis swept into the chamber looking as ever the picture of beauty and as always an imperious figure. "Lord Raiden, it pleases me to see you are doing well."

His eyes traveled over her, her host really was fetching, body. "Yes you as well," A brief pause with things in the galaxy as they were well plans needed to be put in place. "I would rather you remain here though." He replied of course her host was nothing compared to his own ability to shapeshift.

"And why would that be Lord Raiden." Asked Artemis in a sweet voice. Artemis while she had been submissive to Raiden for more than two thousand years was still a Goa'uld and thus still had the ego complex, and would naturally not roll over and stay put just because Raiden said so with out a good reason. Her being resistant was something Raiden had expected, it was to be expected it had happened before, it would now and it would happen in the future, however he needed her resources intact now that Ra was dead.

He frowned, "Must we constantly deal with this," Artemis gave a cheeky grin in response "you are too valuable to me to be risked leading jaffa in dealing with any minor system lord threat." He commented. Unfortunately Cronus's blood bred impetuousness, the same impetuousness that had caused Artemis to rise with Zeus against Cronus millenium ago.

"I am grateful for your concern but it is unnecessary-" she replied dismissively from where she was standing before the powerful System Lord.

Raiden fixed her with a glare. "You will remain here at least for a short period of time," The Shinto god stated his tone became dangerous, "until and not before the Fleet Mobile Weapons Project progresses to the next stage," The dark haired magic user stated, "work on the Umbrella of Artemis shield system adapt it for use on Ha'tak or something." He commanded. "I don't care you'll stay here, I command it."

Artemis glared in defiance even as he shifted into a fully grown form before her very eyes. The Umbrella of Artemis was a light wave shield, which provided almost perfect defense stopping most energy or physical weapons the only flaw to the system was certain weapons had to be modified to be able to fire out of the shield, namely the plasma weapons used by the Goa'uld, these modifications were very tedious.

Raiden softened, s"As I said or something," He repeated, sighing. "I wish to eventually phase out totally the use of the older Ha'tak and replace them with newer vessels until the only Ha'tak in service are the type threes, as I have had you do by phasing out you type one Ha'tak with the newer Pegasus class vessels." Raiden remarked moving one hand to brush her cheek in the usual Goa'uld, even if he no longer was one from a taxidermical perspective, gesture of affection and possessiveness.

"You state the need for the phasing out of the Ha'tak, why?" she asked

"More than Ten thousand years is an impressive time as active war ship," The system lord remarked, "but a new sword will be used against my enemies." He replied

"And your sister?" she inquired in response.

He frowned, another of his vassals, "Amaterasu is choosing to begin completely phasing out the construction of the Type one in favor of the type three and the Super Ha'tak vessels will serve as her frontline assault ship, throughout the next centuries, eventually she will also phase out the type two." Raiden answered. Personally he thought her conservatism foolish, but he'd not force the issue.

All of this of course made sense from a certain standpoint but, "If I might ask why you chose not to use the Pegasus?" she asked him with a frown of course she wanted to know what his opinions were on her own creation.  
"I have no problems with your design I particularly approve of the final production models," Raiden commented. "however I chose to use Daitenchi class Assault ship given its greater capabilities in its fighter capacitates and its weapons complement are more to my tastes." He stated

Ultimately this was sufficient to convince her to remain here. "I understand," Artemis stated acknowledging his points in regards to the warships, "I will remain here." She sighed in reluctant defeat

Raiden sat back on his throne a lot had changed since the early days from when Earth had first been found by Ra. Merging with Sithis had done a great deal and of course had elevated his original Goa'uld physical form's ability to use magic to whole new heights.

Of course merging with the Death God, even merely a fragment of the dark god's soul, had had its effects and had seriously affected the Goa'uld altering his original personality until the present Raiden had formed.

The altering had imprinted Ayelied cultural attitudes on his personality, conquest on conquest was not a good mix.

-scene break-

_Ame-no-Mihashira_ the August Pillar of Heaven was the fourth of the Rashomon class, for the last few centuries it had served as test for Raiden's biological experiments, the ones it focused upon that consumed much of Raiden's time were the creation highly advanced humans.

These were known as Hok'tar in Goa'uld. Raiden's loyal Jaffa had christened these creations the children of Lightning's will. They possesed advanced powers of both of the mind and of the body, there powers were much like those bestowed upon Raiden's champions, Jaffa or other warriors who Raiden empowered with his magics as a reward for high feats of valor or winning a difficult battle or some such task to earn his favor.

They were... tiny in number, the process even after so many year an exhausting project even with the resources of a major system lord availabe.

These humans were instrumental in the Fleet Mobile Weapons Project certain projects required more advanced beings to control them. "My lord." Greeted a scientist with bow.

Raiden glanced at the scientist. "I trust everything continues well." It was more of a statement rather than a question, heads might literally roll if things weren't going well with this project. The system lord was growing short on patience given the constant start and stop of the project..

"Yes my lord this batch is particularly strong." He announced pleased.

The man was being honest... to an extent "Good." That was all that he said and ultimately it was all that was needed to be said in regards to the issue. Raiden knew the scientist was concealing things, but at the moment he didn't care. He knew some of his jaffa didn't like this program.

Yes Jaffa tended to be stronger, and more resilient than humans but he needed Jaffa else, and prim'ta, developing goa'uld were a limitted resource better spent on infantry than as pilots. Unless you were Heru-ur in which case he drilled them to the point of exhaustion, no with them to the point of exhaustion. Though that was probably why Heru-ur was doing so well against Sokar. It was said Heru-ur also had a new fighter program underway, it was probable. Raiden didn't particularly care, and started peering over the reports, hormone charts, and bone scans, and brain scans, and other things. It infuriated him that the ancients could field such weapons by the tens of thousands without ancient pilots in single battles and he couldn't field but a few hundred in a single battle in his own territory. He knew it would take time, yes, but it didn't make it any less annoying.

Still these hok'tar would be the instruments of his will, the pilots whose weapons would turn the tide against his enemies. They would be superior to the death glider, crush established defenses, and obliterate any army of enemy jaffa they caught out in the open. Oh yes he still needed his infantry, he would need them for many. Infantry would never be obsolete, but even now things were changing on the battlefield

-scene break-

On Earth within the makeshift Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix, that was to say Hogwarts there were a great deal of questions and clamoring, over many things, "What happened Albus?" asked the matronly red headed woman

"We were removed by force by a very large gentleman when someone made an off hand comment." To facilitate the lie Moody glared at Severus. Minerva mouth hung open at the deception. Even as Moody continued his fabrication. "Apparently when said person made said off hand comment said very large man proceeded to lay what those across the pond term 'the smack down' upon us all as punishment for the intended insult against his liege."

Molly didn't even realize it was a deception. "Surely Harry wouldn't have tolerated this." The Weasley matriarch exclaimed in a shrill voice.

"I will put it this way I'd much rather have been handed over to the Japanese ministry officials and the Japanese tend to take insults to a person's bloodline very seriously, than risked the other potential consequence of all this," Moody commented, and the best lies always had hints of the truth, no, there had been little Dark Brotherhood presence, which had been odd, but everyone was alive, "he definitely is in no danger from Sirius Black." Moody added, trying not to think about it. He'd think about all of it later.

The headmaster sighed, things had admittedly not gone as he had hoped, so they'd just have to try harder next time. "I disagree Alastor while Harry's Guard is obviously quite skilled the environment there is not one for a child." Albus passed out pictures of Harry, the muggles were so very abundant with their cameras these days in America it was very useful.

"This is Raiden." Exclaimed on of the older Weasley children.

For a moment the elderly wizard did a double take, how did... "What was that Bill?" inquired Dumbledore with a hidden frown, this was very surprising how did...

"He introduced himself as Raiden when I met him at a dig sight in Egypt, he opened this massive treasure room, I think the main thing he was interested in was some kind of glowing crystal, I looked it up later using one of the tablets at the sight it called the light of Ra." He stated

"That is most interesting Bill, thank you for this information. I would like you to gather any information you can on this artifact and any other Harry might have procured from the site." Stated the headmaster. Dumbledore was busy attempting to amend his plans and adapt them to what he currently knew about what was going on. He stood up, "Ah yes well everyone its been a long day and there is still a lot of work to be done, uh Minerva if you would Severus up to Madame Pomfrey, and into a bed please, I need a word with Alastor about some other things, yes." He'd barely waited for an affirmative before strolling out of the room effectively dragging the grizzled ex auror along in a very undignified manner.

-scene break-

Sirius didn't know what to think of the chapel. "Is it always like this?" Sirius asked referring to the thick fog, which since he had been here had not even let up.

"Yes." His guide told him, "It protects us, offers us protection from other parties," The man continued, "Our god is benevolent, kind and just for he is the apologist of mankind, and for this we are ever grateful, not all the gods are so kind. We serve the gods of light, the Aedra, benevolent beings."

Sirius shrugged, "yeah," The Old Pureblood, most of them not even just the dark ones had differing opinions, it was either Lilith saying all of them were bad, or ancient pureblood sorcerers supporting the Daedra, particularly Azura, though Sanguine had some popularity too amongst other factions of purebloods. "So about Sithis?"

"The Dark God cannot find us for the moment, so we must not leave here yet," His guide responded, they called him younger brother, but the monk had to be at least in his forties at least, "in truth we must be weary Sirius Black, the Dark Gods are grim and terrible, and their servants are callous men, who would gladly slay us."

Sirius nodded along, he still wasn't quite sure how he'd gotten into this mess, though on the plus side the creepy dreams had stopped. On the down side he wasn't dreaming at all, which was weird, though again on the plus side he was out of Azkaban.

There was the sound of footsteps on the cobblestones, and a man entered. It took Sirius a minute to realize just who it was. It was Mad Eye Moody, and he was not pleased at all. The old Auror looked ragged, but more to the point pissed, as evident when he seized 'Younger brother' by the collar of his clerical robes, "Listen to me you bastard, listen," He should the priest throughly. "Dumbledore isn't listening, and I don't know what we were thinking-"  
"We thought nothing," Younger brother squeaked, "Stendarr commanded us to liberate the innocent in his name, for he is a benevolent and just god." The priest protested, "Our duty is to serve, the glorious benevolence of the Aedra shines now even in these dark times, and you should not have come."

"Dumbledore is out of hid depth, and Sithis manifested on earth!" The wizard shook him, "And Dumbledore didn't get it! We need to bring him up to speed," The unspoken before we all die horribly hung there. Dumbledore meant well yes, but he was set in his beliefs, and his ways, "He's got all eyes on Voldemort, and thats going to get people killed if the Brotherhood shows up." Alastor dropped him and rounded on Sirius.

Padfoot waved, "Uh hi Mad Eye fancy seeing you here in the secret church freaky aedra worshipping monk, how has your last two decades been old buddy?"  
"Can it Black nows not the time."

– Chapter end -


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Lightning Fervor

- - Chapter Begin -

On Earth the 'traditional' purebloods made sure to keep their children educated on the matters of the gods but even they didn't really understand things about the multitude of deities. That and Sirius had never been the most attentive of students to his family's traditional lessons

Sirius had vaguely known about the legends about the dark brotherhood. He'd vaguely remembered lessons about them, and others. Mad Eye hadn't really been in the mood for lessons. So when he'd 'explained' it'd basically boil down to you had the death eaters and then you had daedric cultists who would let horrid monsters eat your face, and then you had the Daedra's personal human assets who were worse. The Dark Brotherhood fell into latter territory apparently. Then there was the whole ranting about Sithis walking the damned earth, and at that point Sirius had stepped back and let Moody vent for a bit.  
From what he'd heard Moody was a bit stressed. Dumbledore, according to old Mad Eye, was mindlessly sloshing along heedless of other threats in the goal of finding the chosen one. This was were Sirius tuned back in because it involved his godson.

Dumbledore said they needed to find Harry because he was fated to defeat Voldemort, and that with Voldemort's second rise, and the dark lord gathering forces now they had to find him so he could face the dark lord. Apparently Mad Eye had inadvertently lead them all into a trap, or maybe not a trap from the sounds of it. Moody definitely thought it had definitely been a trap, but Sirius wasn't so sure. Of course Moody also happened to think that Harry was actually Sithis, uber evil daedric dark good of doom... err death, who was masquerading around as Raiden for the Japanese. So really Sirius was kind of taking everything Mad Eye said with a mountain of salt as opposed to a pinch of salt.

'Little Brother' had added, ever so helpfully at that point, that, "The gods only intervene in the affairs of the faithful or those tied to the will of the gods. For the Gods have granted man the gift of free will to live in creation."

"The gods agreed to let us live because they wanted to avoid kill each other," Moody snapped back angrily, "We all get to live because the Gods have a ceasefire going on where they'll restrict meddling with us mere mortals so they don't render the whole planet unable to sustain life. Thats what the truth is."

Sirius recoiled, well that was a charming sentiment, "Uh mad eye could calm down really uh I need to know whats going on." Sirius said, "So could you explain it without screaming about how we're in deep shit, and tell me how I can help."

Moody's face contorted, "Fine black except we are in deep shit, but fine you want to help you can join the fight against against the daedra, and while we're at it Voldemort too," For Sirius the plan Moody laid out was a little vague, but he supposed it was better than sitting around doing nothing.

– scene break-

This was one of Raiden's numerous worlds, for to be a system lord was to be a ruler who decided the day to day fate of many hundred worlds. Today was borning, just another bit of bureaucracy, important but boring. Cogs in a machine as it were, but it kept the empire flourishing. He'd been busy, all week, overseeing various reports and data from across this sector. There were reports of Heru-ur unveilling some knew 'dai', or large ha'tak against Sokar. Raiden was not particularly concerned initial reports considered it was most likely a larger mildly enhanced type two one off. He was much to busy persecuting his war with Susanoo, who had unwisely presented Raiden with an opening in his defenses while he, Susanoo, had moved to seize several resource rich worlds which belonged to an unaligned former underlord of Ra.

"My lord we have apprehended a Tok'ra operative." Announced the regional leader of the Jaffa. On Raiden's worlds, like many, the populations were organized according to social class. A semi rigid caste society determined the order and layout of day to day life. His Samurai, whether Jaffa or human, or in the rare case Unas, and along with certain classes of priests belonged to an elevated social class. It was however the Samurai who largely handled administration on most worlds. In these days especially the Samurai reminded that they were supposed to be warriors as well as administrators of their god's mortal domain, which meant constant vigilance.

"Have you now?" Raiden's face took on a malicious appearance his magic causing his eyes to glow. It was a welcome reprieve.

The Dungeons themselves were unremarkable strictly speaking. "I will never tell the Goa'uld anything of the Tok'ra no matter how much you torture me." Hissed the Tok'ra

"Good I had no intention of interrogating you anyway." Commented the system lord off hand. The Tok'ra looked confused for a moment at the proclamation, then why would he come at all. The system lord spent several minutes memorizing every detail of the Tok'ra, how his host looked. He remembered each and every obscenity the Tok'ra screamed at him as the tok'ra's eyes flashed as the child of Egeria attempted to elicit a rise from him.

Then Raiden walked out of the cell, before abruptly stopping midway through the doorway and bolting around a bow of lightning forming in his hand. "I hate the Tok'ra." Raiden released the arrow of lightning. He had once asked himself why the Tok'ra fought. "I have listened, and all I have seen is your death. I will see to it the Tok'ra punished for their crimes they will be destroyed like the rest of my enemies."

The system lord had asked himself this when his mind was still acclimating itself and his personality still in the process of forming his new personality. The answer he had gotten in response to the Tok'ra from the fragment of Sithis identified these actions as not dissimilar to those condoned and encouraged by Mehunes Dagon, a Daedra who had been slain.

For him though... the Tok'ra had no honor, originally there cause was just perhaps. They had risen to defend their mother, stupid though she might have been, and what cause could be more just than than that. Egeria children however now well they were little more the conniving murderous traitors They would do anything to accomplish their goals. This is why they will never win because they always betray or look down upon those who could help them.

-scene bereak-

In truth he'd underestimated Susanoo's defenses, but it'd been worth it. What had formerly been Susano's home world was now a burning wreck. The orbitals of the planet were crowded with the debris from ships over both sides. Susanoo had been prepared, he had had enough time to prepare to make a final stand, but not enough to stop a true System Lord's assault

Raiden stood over his fallen rival, and technically the brother to the original goa'uld. "This vendetta has ended." Raiden brought his sword down severing his Goa'uld nemesis's head from its host body. It was true that he would have to eliminate the last of Susanoo's vassals, and in particular his fleet but that was something that could be done in the coming weeks.

"And you tell me not to go running off to deal with petty goa'uld lords, is that not a tad hypocritical my Lord Raiden." Stated Artemis entering, waltzing was more like it, the hall. Raiden glowered at the Greek goa'uld irritated at the defiance of his explicit orders only for her to speak up. "As you commanded Lord Raiden the project is ready to progress to stage two." She announced smugly to the Shinto Kami, which was after all the terms of her leaving.

The system lord did not seem pleased. "Jaffa leave us." Artemis paled at the command.

The majority of the warriors bowed moved to comply with their god's command, one however spoke up, "My lord?" inquired one of the elite of Raiden's personal jaffa guard speaking on behalf of the rest of the group. His armor was thick reinforced, marking him as a member of Raiden's Thunder Guard

Raiden in a calm tone uttered a single word to the questioning jaffa, "Now." He allowed the question, the man was hatamoto, his jaffa guard, a personal bannerman, an envoy he could depend on. The man's loyalty was proven, and his honor great. It didn't matter he was not Raiden's first prime.

The remaining jaffa did not need further orders. "Yes my lord." The jaffa bowed made haste to exit the room, pondering why with varying reasons as to the command. Not even Artemis's jaffa guard questioned the declaration, not that it would have mattered as in Susanoo's throne room there was an entire company of Raiden's lightning guard, as well as a company of his Thunder guard. Susanoo had never built anything small, or half done in his life. A total of 500 Elite Jaffa Guard in the room versus twenty five? Suicide, Raiden's men could beat them into submission without effort.

As the last Jaffa left magic sealed and isolated the Hall and the system lord's personal guard frowned but stood dutifully at the doors. If it was their god's will that they not be in the hall then no other would be permitted to enter until Raiden deemed it so, even should it cost them their lives. This was what it meant to serve a system lord. Artemis's jaffa guard waited patiently, her overlord was fond of their goddess, but he was the living storm too.

– scene break-

n orbit around the Alteran Space Facility Bairn like its many siblings the Sun Tzu, named for one of Yu Huang Shang Ti's favorite human ministers, the nineteenth of the Rashomon class built rested.

Artemis rubbed her cheek as Raiden took the time to look out from one of the dry-dock observation deck at the new Test bed ship. It was for a new design that would be called the Izumo, the class was being laid down alongside the new_Tsuigara class vessels and new Menalos carriers. The Menalos would be a line of light carriers that Artemis herself would employ. _

_The Izumo class would serve not only as a test bed for smaller designs of the _Fleet Mobile Weapons Project it would serve as a test bed for working out and perfecting most the weapons in the Daitenchi class which shared a large number of weapons with, despite being of a different class of warship. The Izumo and Daitenchi were intended for completely different roles in the fleet.

The Tsuigara class would be replacing the aging, in Raiden's opinion Goa'uld designed Frigates. Truthfully was overdue, especially with the increasing value of small craft. This was most evident by the battles being fought recent by many system lords.

Heru-ur had done what Susano had done. Or rather that had been his first assumption on hearing the news, but that had turned out to be wrong. Susano had been rushing in his preparations bringing everything he could to try and defend his capital world. The infantry defense fighting house to house had been spirited as humans, and Jaffa of Susanoo had taken up both goa'uld and human weapons against Raiden's forces. Susanoo had been amongst the first goa'uld to adopt human firearms, and he'd refined it, and the staff weapons over the years despite the trouble he'd gotten in for it. The bastardized staff weapons were effective with their primitive sights, and bracings especially the short ones in close street to street combat. However it'd been in space where things had been decided.

Susanoo had wheeled out what had been dated designs, slightly modernized previously mothballed ships. He'd upgraded them to suit his battle line and his defense tactics. The ships he had wheeled out of storage had been repurposed and given new life. The ships had both been before the first flight of Ha'tak had been standarized by Ra. The Cheops, and the heavily armed but power intensive and maintenance needy siege ships the Chel'tak. The Cheops class ships had proved devestating against Raiden's fighters, while the Chel'tak had battered his main line of ships as Susanoo's ha'tak had attempted to smash his flashship's defense squadron. It'd failed, of course, but not without destroying some of his type threes. A handfull had been lost because of the assault from dozens of ships.

Raiden had made Susanoo pay for that small price he had inflicted on him. Raiden's flagship the Shinku Rai Tatsu was built nigh entirely of Ancient technology he'd used it to eviscerate Susanoo's ha'tak line as they had closed. Once the flight two ha'tak had been eliminated, and only the aging flight ones remained the battle had been theirs.

Susanoo's fleet had shown great courage in giving their lives by fighting on. The system lord's capital ships decimated the Chel'tak, whose shields were inferior to Ha'tak

Raiden turned his eyes to the Taurus Mobile suits and the CGUE, were the two mobile suits slated to enter primary mass production within the next six months in order to field advanced weapons to deal capably against any foreseeable threat while Research continued, or so Raiden asserted. This was the future he had said. A weapon to turn the tide in the air and ground.

"Pity they weren't ready in time to kill Susano," He murmured continuing to survey the weapons, then again the Cheops with their retrofitted rapid fire anti fighter guns would have been effective against them just like the gliders. At least the mobile suits en mass would have been able to threat the Cheops. "I would have enjoyed the look of abject terror on his face. Oh well. Artemis I will not likely return until Two point one examinations." He remarked.

The Mobile Suits were humanoid weapons meant to be more effective in attacking both 'ground' and ship targets than traditional units. Originally the technology had been pioneered by the Ancients, but the ancients had been much more advanced physically so they could handle the stress of piloting the machines as well as they had had the ability to build inertial dampeners which could absorb the force. Even their human subjects had been able to pilot mobile suits, it was a sore point for Raiden.

Sithis no doubt had access to the technology but of course due to the rules the Daedric lord would not act without the request from a mortal to intervene.

As it stood the mobile weapons and the new ships all of them were meant to be of use to him in claiming the position of supreme system lord... well eventually. Some of the new ships were vastly smaller than the regular goa'uld Ha'tak vessels, but they could be as dangerous if used correctly or had newer technology.

Ha'tak vessels were expensive to build, but they were multirole vessels, and even the older models were amongst the most powerful ships in this galaxy, due of course in no small part to the Goa'uld limiting development of other empires wherever possible.

Of course due to the pricetag and the resources that Ha'tak were an investment of for that same price it was possible to construct multiple smaller vessels, which was one method of using the new ships or at least the smaller ones. Besides specialization had its own benefits.

Raiden leaned back contemplating his other half Sithis's goals were of course his own. Sithis was taking steps to expand his power and influence by getting around the rules, which kept the powerful group of beings he was apart of, in check.

There was also the matter of Earth to consider the planet had prospered, as a hybrid between a goa'uld soul and a fragment of Sithis's, he no longer was interested in humans as host they had other uses though. He was of course not the only Goa'uld to reach the ranks of 'True god', but luckily most of the others were his allies of had disappeared centuries ago. It'd been suspicious, but then well Sokar's terrors had been a bad thing for everyone in the galaxy. That was an extreme understatement.

Now that Ra was dead, who hadn't possessed magic but had instead had a very dangerous ability all his own, and those others were not in the way the only impediment was conventional resistance from the mundane system lords. As it stood the time was right to begin to expand, and that was precisely what the system lord intended to do.

That was not to say it would be easy. No this would be a battle. A battle he had expected, but he could prepare and he had all the opportunity to do so. Heru-ur, and Cronus were both furiously involved in fighting now. So were lesser system lords like Moloc, who was a potentially ideal target to test his new weapons on. Moloc wouldn't be able to mount any sufficient resistance.

There were other options to be a system lord in a time of unrest and civil war in the empire was to control vast swathes of space. Bastet and Kali weren't options and while he would have liked to intervene and smash both Camulus, and Mannaan as it stood both were currently involved in a fight that was ultimately to likely turn in Mac Lir's favor. There was also the fact those two were too far from own domain. There were closer enemies to consider in any event.

Green eyes narrowed and a dark smile curved warping the system lord's face, and there was the matter of those wizards, but that could wait until everything else was handled.

– chapter end -

Helltanz's notes: There are now mobiles suits.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Lightning Fervor

Helltanz's notes: Here is chapter six

– Chapter begin -

Raiden's flagship had carefully taken up its usual high Geo-synchronous Orbit over the planet avoid any unnecessary risk of detection. Not that that was likely, as the Asgard were the only ones likely to detect him at the moment given the Tauri. No the Shinku Rai Tatstu was built for many things, but stealth was not one of them. Stealth had been one of those after construction refinements that hadn't quite matched the rest of the ship. It boiled down to the Tauri definitely wouldn't be able to see, well they shouldn't it was possible one of these new corporations had the potential to. It'd been rather fortunate that none of the other system lords had cared to considered to look at Tauri corporations.

Raiden snarled impotently looking at a shriveled mummy like corpse, he gritted his teeth in irritation at the present course of events. He sighed, pinched the bridge of his nose, and took a deep breath. Complaining about idiot humans, and the damned Asgard treaty wasn't going to help the situation. It'd been a lucky cross check authorized by Aoshi that they'd even thought to look for this.

A jaffa entered the chamber approaching the system lord cautiously. "My lord." The jaffa bowed reverently. This was not the turn of events he had been hoping for when he had arrived in orbit over Earth, obviously he had expected some degree of bad news but this really was a nuisance. Aoshi's report had indicated an actual conflict with Shinso pawns in Japan, that'd been had gotten his attention. The 'blood death', rapid coagulation of as a result of a Shinso's antibodies, had been reported, and confirmed. That they had found the husk boded worse. He'd thought they'd been confined to isolated parts of the Congo, clearly though the humans had been thorough in trying to explore all four corners, as it were of their planet.

One hundred and sixty eight years. The system lord growled. That period of time was dangerous even assuming a series regular hibernation cycles that amount of time meant the population of those creatures would be reaching dangerous levels soon... and unfortunately these things were good at hiding. It'd been a mistake, he'd known it years ago, but back then he hadn't cared, there had been other things he could distract himself with.

The jaffa had little of merit to report, which only reminded him how good things they were at hiding, in all likelihood they were amongst the wizard. The other options was one or both must have been in hibernation. He'd discarded that simply because there had bee too much activity once they'd actually started looking for the usual signs.

Raiden had been thorough in destroying the Shinso. When they'd first discovered them they had ranged in area from the subsaharan africa through Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia and into what humans called the indo china peninsula, as well as the far east. When they'd chosen to throw in with Sokar in large numbers during the terror the system lords had been caught off guard by an large. Most of the young system lords had been ill prepared for such assaults that the Shinso mounted.

Raiden had prided himself on being so thorough about eliminating 'the others', the Shinso, or sealing them away permanently in the shrines. It'd been a campaign that had dramatically curbed their numbers limiting them primarily to the jungles of the congo, and potentially Thailand. The system lord gritted teeth as he looked over the reports. The losses were minor, at least with regard to resources. It'd be easy enough to replace material now that they knew what they were facing. The Shinto kami considered his options leaving the situation unattended would no doubt simply cause the problem to fester until it was even more trouble, but at present there were matters which required his attention. His forces on Earth, and hopefully the native born wizards, could in theory address the issue without interference from him, but they also had tasks they were assigned. Of course he had planned on speaking with Talpa on certain issues anyway, and the same held true that he needed to speak with Saki as well sometime in the near future, plus there were other issues. Still it was better that Aoshi had thought to look into it, than ignoring the issue.

A light flashed on one of command consoles alerting him to another vessel on approach to the system in hyperspace. "Warning Asgard Beliskner class approaching from Hyperspace estimated time until arrival two minutes." Stated the computer's electronic voice.

It was a grievous inconvenience for the Asgard to show up. "All ships withdraw to Hinotama research Facility," He commanded to the officers on the bridge. The protected planets treaty was very specific he could continue with all his established bases, and the Asgard wouldn't object. He just couldn't turn his anti surface guns on the damned infestation below, which would have made things so much simpler.

As far as cloaking technology went most system lords dismissed the ability to cloak Ha'tak size vessels as utter nonsense. Sokar had quickly shown the system lords that'd been a mistake.

The Bairn had been something Raiden had had to repair on his own, the facility a left over from what Sithis referred to as the War in Heaven was no real use to the Dark God but his other half, Raiden, could use the facility. Access to Ancient space ship technology meant also would be able cloak his ha'tak as well but for now Sokar had a monopoly on the trick. It was unfortunate especially if Sokar decided to again employ Shinso in his forces. Of course with the present state of the system lords it wouldn't bode well if Sokar didn't start resorting once again to using monstrous creatures. As it was only time would tell, as proven by Apophis's abrupt downfall even the greatest system lords were not immune to the strife. On the plus side the Council of System Lords was shrinking, as power consolidated between individual established member, there was also the vote to formally readmit Sokar to the council coming up...

– scene break-

Dumbledore in the meanwhile had finally gotten around to calling Moody back to Hogwarts after the weirdness of last week's order of the pheonix meeting. It was true that Moody believed in keeping secrets, but his brazen deception to the rest of the order had come straight out of left field as the Americans would say. Naturally Albus wanted an explanation. "Now Alastor would you kindly explain what all that was about last week?"

The scarred wizard face twisted a bit as he gnashed his teeth, "Long ago the Dread Father Sithis gave a spell to mankind so grim and terrible that it had the power to kill any mortal, it was not perfect but it was unblockable. He gave the original killing curse to humanity, and over the centuries it was twisted by wizards. The spell does not spare, relents to know known defense, and yet the Dark God of Death's spell was tossed back on Voldemort on Halloween 1981."

The headmaster nodded begin with his usual theory on what had happen. "Well as you know Mad Eye I long suspected that Lilly had found-" Dumbledore was interupted as Moody banged his hand on the desk in front of him.  
"Bullshit, bullshit and bollocks, Lily was brilliant, there was never a denying that, but its bullshit. Its a bloody fairy tale to tell the children. Lily Potter was brilliant, but thousands and thousands of years that curse killed without fail." Moody stated, "No we've got to face facts, he's Sithis incarnate, I don't know how or why, but its a lot more likely than your cockamamie theory about Lilly Potter finding some defense when there is nothing in her notes at all about it."

Snape decided now was the prime time to interject. "Perhaps Mad eye should be turned over to the psyche ward at Saint Mungo's." Muttered the order of the Pheonix's chief spy during the last war. "It seems his last screw has come loose at last.

Alastor flicked his wand dangerously, "Shut it death eater, never should have brought you in on this. It would have been better to gut you and be done with it, you backstabbing bastard."

"Severus, Alastor," Albus remarked with sigh, "both of you please calm yourselves."

Moody lowered his wand. "Alright Albus, Lily and James died, Harry Potter vanished into a rift of bright green energy. Now something happened, and it involved Sithis, it had to."

"Now Alastor explain who is Sithis? I remember some of my childhood lessons, but clearly you've spent more time on this than I old friend. So if you would?" Dumbledore asked. Dumbledore was an old pureblood family and Albus was very old, but he couldn't place it offhand. He'd knew he'd read it, knew it was old magic, knew it was a dozen other useless facts.

Alastor Moody frowned and cast a suspicious look at Snape who snorted in response, "According to history that was recorded by The Order of the Nine," He began, "Sithis is one of the collection of Daedric princes of Oblivion." Seeing that they didn't understand he elaborated, "To put it simply they are a group of Dark Gods. Extremely powerful, terribly old gods whose only rivals are the Aedra for none of the new gods can stand against them. Sithis is the god of death amongst other things." Officially Sithis's dominion covered Judgement, Death, Chaos, Eternity and a multitude of other things including snakes. "He was responsible for such things as giving humanity the killing curse, he is responsible for the founding of the Dark Brotherhood who serve in much the role of his high priests," Moody paused but decided against explaining the Dark Brotherhood for the moment, "The Bubonic Plague that ravaged Europe that was the product of one of his sorcerers who lived in China. The list of atrocities goes on of things he or his servants have done and that's only on this world." Ticked off Moody along with a handful of other 'bad things', "Of the Daedra he is the oldest, and most powerful." To support his suppositions Moody laid out a number of supporting documents

"So Potter's a god, right." Snape remarked in a disbelieving tone, a statement he made while rolling his eyes.

"Oooh I remember this it was banned by the Ministry my graduating year for corrupting the public youth of the-," Dumbledore paged through the old book, "I'd like to borrow this Alastor if you don't mind, was such a good read." He remarked thumbing on ignoring the two glaring wizards.

The grizzled auror stared down the potions master. "Its your funeral you bastard, but its like this. Harry Potter doesn't exist at least not the way we thought. The being we associate with being Harry Potter is merely Sithis having shed his skin and assumed a different form, I believe since Sithis hasn't done anything recently he may have gone incognito perhaps creating the identity of the Japanese God Raiden some time in the distant past." Moody paused grudgingly conceding that it wasn't all bad.

"Alastor I don't mean to contradict," Dumbledore spoke up, "however all of these are rather clear for," He paused again, "That the situation is hardly a grim as your insisting. I should think we should certainly have to look into this more, jumping into this without checking our facts is hardly a wise course. I should think that it would be wise that we should review your existing materials."

Moody stared at him,

"So I can borrow this right?" The headmaster asked, "Anyway given the situation we should also perhaps bring young William into this, and expand our pool of research material. Severus perhaps you should look into seeing what resources Voldemort has that could be useful after all leave no stone unturned." Dumbledore wasn't convinced, in fact he was still rather confident of his own plan, but it couldn't hurt, and it wasn't like they had any other leads at the moment to follow up.

-scene break-

As directed Raiden's flagship had moved above the Hinotama Research facility on Mars as soon as it had detected the Asgard battlecruiser on approach to the Tauri solar. As it turned out it was in fact the actual Beliskner, which was in a word suspicious.

The exact wording

'It's the Beliskner and what is this…" The system lord peered over the sensor report, "its not functioning properly, what could be causing that what would interfere with an Asgard warship? Unless,' Raiden smirked he knew about the replicators 'oh my, they are using the Tauri to fight Replicators.' Raiden concluded. He had heard of the replicators, a development of the Ancients from many thousands of years ago, though exactly why an ancient creation warred with the Asgard eluded him precisely. "Well, well this is interesting the Asgard vessel seems to be transporting a Tauri from Cheyenne Mountain." They could determine this because of the sensors around the stargate facility that were there as part of the treaty. The goa'uld had agreed that the Tauri would retain their stargate there had been stipulations worked out with the asgard.

"My lord is that not in violation of the treaty?" One of the jaffa asked of his god.

The system lord nodded smugly, "From a strictly legalistic perspective, yes it is in violation of that System Lords Asgard Protected Planets treaty giving us perfect justification to do this. Ready the ship for non energy combat and engage network protection on the ships computers." Raiden flicked a switch activating the ship hyperspace window generator. Technically the ship did have the usual mind machine interface that most Goa'uld vessels used, but there were manual controls just in case, or if the system lord just wanted to be 'old fashioned'.

There was a rumbling thrum of the engines as they ripped a hole into hyperspace. The trip itself was so short that no one noticed the entry into hyper space, and the flagship arrived in high earth orbit.

Meanwhile aboard the Beliskner, which itself was in high orbit over North America, ultimately centered over Stargate Command, a console had started to

Jack looked aroung the room and Thor had evacuated to after the mechanical bugs had overtaken the control center. "Uh Thor buddy? That blinking light that's not a good thing is it." He inquired,

"It is not, O'Neill." The Asgard concurred, he had cautioned that allowing the goa'uld unimpeded dominance of the galaxy would have repercussions, but the council had been quite obstinate. Raiden had taken care never to give the legalistic Asgard cause to poke at his territory, always taking care to abide by the letter of the Asgard System Lord treaties. It'd been precisely that reason of why the Asgard watched Raiden, and Yu far closer than the likes of Ra, or Apophis, because of what was considered uncharacteristic goa'uld behavior. So naturally the asgard had known about the ancient technology, "It would seem Raiden detected the Beliskner, which more likely indicates he was here," The sensor improvements on the Shinku Rai Tatsu were a recent advance, and still not likely to detect an Asgard vessel beyond ~90 or so light years. Most likely Raiden had been near Earth, as given the speed of the Beliskner unlikely to be much of a warning.

Thor took a minute to go about accessing the sensors which were still available to him. "We had not suspected, the Asgard council that is, that Raiden's development had been progressing on such a bell curve, there is a probably situation that Raiden's flagship," Though not his Ha'tak escorts, "A potentially useful development for the moment."

Jack attempted to make heads or tails of the sensor read out, "Huh what do you mean its Raiden's ship that bad?" O'neill had perked up at the remark from the supreme commander of the Asgard Fleet./

"It is quite the contrary." Responded Thor not understanding the mechanics of the sentence, "O'Neill, the ship in question is many millennia advanced over typical Goa'uld design at least in the realm of firepower, a benefit of ancient technology" The Asgard were by no means stupid but they did honor their agreements. Raiden's lack of progress with cloaking ships "It is this advantage in technology which is most discouraging, though his Ha'tak are unlikely to oppose a Beliskner in single combat, the Shinku Rai Tatsu is a more pure back engineering of Ancient technology "

Jack nodded at the statement, even though it unnerved him. Mainly because from all available evidence 'ancient' tech was not a good sign. "Yeah, Raiden already knows about the bluff." Commented O'neill.

The Asgard had been aware for quite some of the advancements that Raiden had been making, or rather back engineering. Almost Goa'uld technology had originated from back engineered ancient technology to start with, but they'd been all severely degraded or truly dated bits of technology.

The Asgard had confirmed the Bairn's prescence centuries ago, the closest they'd come to ordering an assault. The vote had been narrow. Raiden for whatever reason kept his advanced technology away from the frontlines, or at least that was what he had been doing up until recently, the last hundred or so years. Ra's apparent loosening of his grip, and then the supreme system lord's death seemed to change all that.

By keeping his technology hidden the bulk of the other Goa'uld those who might attempt to attack him remained unaware of his technological advancement, and typically Raiden maintained a clear advantage over his enemies thus bolstering his reputation amongst the other system lords.

"We have long suspected as much, Yu as well,"

O'neill nodded, and looked back at the 'screen', or projection display of the sensors. He figured he had a rough gist of what things represented, "So what about these?" He tapped the console on top of a white blur that a run had popped up beside. "This should be empty space correct?"

"Yes originally I suspected they were the sensors managing to faintly get a hold of what might have been Goa'uld surveillance dones, however this may yet prove advantageous, in the event and if Raiden fails these will undoubtedly destroy the Beliskner ensuring the Replicators are not allowed to spread in this galaxy." Thor stated. "Long ago O'neill when the Four Races explored galaxies far beyond yours or ours, the Ancients were divided and from the civil war new factions emerged. Before that though the Ancients colonized your solar system your world, these were the Alterans. What remains of them may yet be of help to us in this time." Then the beliskner started rattling sharply

Raiden's flagship was specifically constructed to be beyond even typical Goa'uld mothership variant Ha'tak vessels. That had been the story he'd told the other goa'uld, that he'd told the system lords. He'd told them that he'd build a ship no Ha'tak mothership couldtake in single combat.

The Beliskner, venerable cruiser and work horse of the Asgard Fleet, was like the Ha'tak a beast of a warship that had few competitors. The Beliskner though was an old design, its upgraded engines, and some of the newer weapons had been built for newer hulls. Beliskner was a good design, but it was old, there were stresses on it new designs wouldn't have.

Thor knew that one day Raiden's new ship designs might pose a danger, but as it stood for Raiden's regular Ha'tak, of the second configuration, a Beliskner would have to be outnumbered by a factor of three to destroy the Asgard ship. Ten thousand years ago an Asgard corvette could have killed ten flight 1 Ha'taks. Progress marched one. Five hundred years ago, 5 of the brand new Ha'tak flight 2s would have been needed to take an Asgard Light Cruiser. Now it was 3 of the new Flight 2s to kill the Beliskner, but at least that was dubious.

"Uh yeah," The Air Force colonel began, "lets make sure we are win I don't particularly like the idea of being blown up." He remarked.

The Asgard bobbed his head in agreement. "That is a sentiment we share O'Neill." Agreed Thor. "Once we do survive though it is time we spoke about how the goa'uld development got so out of hand. According to Asgard intelligence he's begun to replace those vessel in favor of other craft."  
"Those new Ha'tak right with the larger superstructure ring," Yu had been using them as well. They'd gotten to see one slugging it out in orbit when SG1 had gotten caught in the middle of a fight between rival system lords.

Thor nodded in confirmations, even as a chunk of the Beliskner exploded in the space above the earth. These were the flight threes, bigger to carry bigger engines, and more armor, better shields and weapons, and larger hangars. Heru-ur was supposed to be rolling out his own version.

The replicators had probably started trying to fire back. There was more rattling, probably Ha'tak adding their fire to the fray.

A hologram of Raiden materialized in the room. The System Lord looked as far as Jack was concerned even more smug than usual. With probable good reason it wasn't often that System lord got to trash an Asgard ship in a fight. "_O-hayō gozaimasu, _T_sumaranai __mono desu ga."_Raiden held out a hand, "I can yet offer you safe passage back to the Earth. The Beliskner must be destroyed though." The hologram vanished as did both the Asgard and the human. The flash of light were ancient trasnporters, functionally similiar to to Asgard versions. The transporters safely dropped the asgard, and the human back on earth.

Aboard the Shinku Rai Tatsu one of the Jaffa looked up from one of the primary weapon stations of the Shinku Rai Tatsu, "My lord we are prepared to destroy-" Raiden held up his hand to silence the man's announcement.

"Good" He commented, "Hold your fire though," Ordered the System lord settling into his own station, as the flagship shuttered as it's shield flared under fire from the Beliskner "I want to test something. I'm authorized authorize the use of the new prototype MKX91 Positron cannon. If worse does comes to the worst the main gun will be used." Raiden stated.

As with most flagships the SHinku Rai Tatsu featured a 'Main Gun' a weapon that was far more powerful than any of the other cannons on the ship. The Flagship of a System Lord was built with the best of everything the System Lord had available and its weapons were the most advanced that the System Lord could procure or build. This was how it had been since establishment of the system lords.

Against any other ship the Shinku Rai Tatsu's main gun was what a Tauri would call over kill when used in Ship to Ship confrontations the Gun was mainly used to destroy multiple warships, on lower power settings, or annihilate entire, shielded, cities or fortified structures from orbit. Against an Asgard battlecruiser? No this was the perfect target for it.

There was a humming of power in the ship. The Beliskner could not escape, Raiden had carefully had his first barrage aimed at the engines just in case. He'd figured that it was possible Thor had attempted or suceeded in disabling the engines, but there was no point in not being sure.

– Chapter conclusion -

Helltanz's notes: Its as good of a rewrite as I'm able to do.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Lightning Fervor

Helltanz's notes: Well here's chapter 7

-Chapter begin –

Raiden watched the reports filtered through the console, the Shinku Rai Tatsu shield systems were based around a series of projecting shield generators conforming to fit a general bubble around the hull. The Asgard forward weapons were angled to largely forward firing, the Beliskner had been built primarily to pursue and destroy, the second guns located further back that could fire to the side weren't nearly as potent. Not that it'd matter.

The Asgard had always limited the number of guns on their ships. Not that such normally mattered as the beliskner's forward rapid fire guns were designed to be rapid firing, but powerful as well, in addition to the forward cannons could rapidly destroy a Ha'tak class vessel.

It was why the Shinku Rai Tatsu, and the Flight 3 Ha'tak were such an innovation. The new shields, and reactors were simply that much of an improvement. The Beliskner was dead in the water, unable to move, and was just too old to stand up to the continued pounding from continuous weapon fire, certainly not after being ambushed.

The Asgard shields rocked as the weapons fired a dozen beams of highly focused energy and twice that many 110 centimeter hyperdense railgun slugs smashed into the Beliskner's protective bubble. It was weakening surely but steadily.

The sensor officer analyzed the feedback data from the Shinku Rai Tatsu's active and passive primary sensors. "Enemy shields are down to sixty percent."

Raiden nodded, their own shields were still in upper eighties. Still it wasn't wise to toy with such a ship, he moved his hands bringing the holographic weapons display up, the targetting sensors had already picked out places where it was best to hit. He ignored the the continued firing of the ships involved.

His ha'tak had joined the fray quickly battering the already weakened Beliskner further. No what Raiden wanted was test data, to see how well the Asgard shields reacted to antimatter weapons. The positron particle beams cut through the now depleted Asgard shields and ripped through the ship causing multiple secondary explosions in as the flurry of matter anti matter annhilations gave way to detonating subsystems of the ship. .

The system lord nodded pleased at the success of the new positron weapon. The ancients had created standardized anti-proton cannons late in their civilization, the technology had been quickly adapted by both sides during the war in heaven. Positrons were another antimatter particle, the equivalent of electrons, and had also been used int blast cannons by both sides. Suffice to say the system lord was quite pleased with the results.

-scene break-

Colonel O'neill was busy looking around "Hey guys." Jack waved at his team,

"Uh, Jack what's going on exactly?" Daniel questioned. "Nevada's subspace array is picking up so much heat radiation bleed off."

"Oh you know the usual Thor and I were on Thor's very nice and spiffy ship. Which had been infested by a hive for robot bug, and the goa'uld showed up just like every other day." He remarked as if talking about the weather. "Anyway Raiden's presently blowing the ship to hell, so he dropped us here."

"Then there is a goa'uld fleet in orbit?" Teal'c questioned,

O'neill gave a shrug, "Probably."

Thor spoke up, "Raiden has brought his primary escort squadron, however the Beliskner will be destroyed quickly, we must insure that any parts that survive the battle go through an uncontrolled renentry." The Asgard announced to the assembled stargate personel, before pausing, "The parts will then burn up in the atmosphere and that should destroy any of the surviving replicators." commented the asgard. "I will need to also contact the asgard high council, if you would permit me the use of your stargate?"

Hammond gave an affirmative gestured while Jack took a step forward, "Oh listen up we need complete assurance of these bugs destruction." the colonel stated taking over, "So lets get NASA and Area 51, and everyone else on the horn. "If we do make it through were going to need to make sure that we've got responses teams outfitted to deal with them."

Hammond turned to Sergeant Alberts as the man saluted "Sergeant,"

"General we have confirmation of the destruction of the Beliskner, Raiden has established a stable orbital position over the mountain, surface to orbit radar is tracking isolated debris clusters, tracking into the ocean. " The man paused, "Also the NID is on line two."

Whatever Hammond's response was going to be was cut off as as hologram unfolded of the system lord, "Your ancestors' tools were surprisingly effective at enhancing the Beliskner's shields." The hologram interjected, the improvements hadn't been enough, but still enough to buy a few minutes.

Jack paused, doing a double take, "Mine?" O'Neill asked confused, and not quite certain he had heard the system lord right. "You should stop popping in on people like that."

"Yes the Alterans." Raiden elaborated as the stargate gave a whoosh and Thor stepped away from the gate.

"Who?" O'neill asked, yeah he remembered Thor bringing it up ten minutes ago. "Is this another lets tell me something and expect me to know everything about it?" Jack turned to Thor turning his palms facing upwards.

"The Road builders." He added, surely the Tauri of the SGC were aware of the builders of the Stargate network, or one of them, after all there were Tauri who did know about the Ayeleid. So if they had been talking to the Asgard they should have known about both.

It took a moment for Daniel to get the reference, "Ahh. Its just we've never heard their true name for their race before." Admitted Doctor Jackson.

"It was something I hoped to address now that the Replicators had been dealt with," The Asgard remarked.

"Danny-boy best pester Thor later" Jack remarked rolling his eyes, "What do you want Raiden? I doubt you have time to be floating about like this."

The system lord had already turned to Daniel, "I have a text you maybe interested in its rather useless to me but you may find it of some use." After all the humans of Earth might end up causing more chaos for the other system lords, "It concerns another group of Alterans known as the Ayeleids if you are interested the planets listed there have very interesting ruins." Besides Sokar was getting far too active when it came to Cronus and Heru-ur, they needed to throttle back the conflict.

O'Neill made a point of clearing his throat. "You blew up the Beliskner right? What do you want?"

"The Beliskner is precisely what I'm here to talk about." Raiden remarked. "The replicators are an issue and as we have all determined kinetic energy weapons are the most effective against them,

O'Neill whistled and nodded. "Sharp on the ball aren't you." He added sarcastically, "Yeah we got that much, look Thor said you were in the neighborhood I think we'd all like to know why?"

"Why because I had business of course, understand of course the present situation is untenable, I have more pressing concerns than one little world, exceptional valuable or not."

Jack got serious, "Okay, that tells me someone else wants earth, and is willing to move on it."  
"A lot of the system lords want earth, Sokar however would be the only one one more than willing to pay the price in blood to take it, and hold it. Sokar doesn't want a burned out husk, burning the major cities from orbit to win, he'd do it but it'd be..." Raiden paused, "a very controlled burning."

The assembled humans grimaced, "Sokar's fighting the other system lords."  
"No Sokar is fighting some of the other System Lords, there is a difference, even Sokar's great fleet can't withstand the entirety of the System Lords collective force of arms. No he'll win a decisive victory over Cronus, and negotiate a favorable peace agreement with him, and then he'll be declared a member of the high council" and that would be the end of that conflict. Sokar would in name, and drama, take Apophis's spot amongst the high council.

"So he's going to waltz in and trash Cronus's shit and get a seat on the council?"  
"Crudely put, but yes Sokar's goal is avenging his last defeat, with Ra, and Apophis dead he needs only to score a victory on Cronus, since he has killed Apophis. Heru'ur will then inheirit a sizable portion of Apophis, and Ra's domain."

"Which makes him one of the strongest, right?" Raiden answered to the affirmative. Heru-ur and Cronus would be gaining great swathes of territory, and likely strengthening their alliance with each other. Given how Heru'ur was developing his fleet it was a powerful combo, especially if Cronus was brought up to speed technologically.

"Another Asgard vessel approaching, "he commented, "We shall resume this discussion another time, perhaps over tea. I wish you luck in dealing with the replicators Thor," Remarked the system lord.

"It is an appreciated sentiment."

Raiden vanished in a flash of light.

"What was that about?" asked the Colonel raising an eyebrow.

"Professional courtesy." Daniel remarked. "I would think."

"Oh the Thunder." O'neill announced

"Storms."

"Whatever." The commander of the Earth's premier stargate team commented with a wave of his hand. "About the replicators, and about the Goa'uld we're going to need to deal with all that."  
"I agree O'neill, there is also much you should be made aware of about the Ancients..."

-scene break-

Raiden, and Sokar had the Goa'uld well in hand in their direction, though by all evidence it did seem that the Others were also backing players. It was particularly why he left helping of Sokar to Hircine, and to a lesser extent Malacath. In the mean time he did have more pressing issues... well in that cared more to deal with them than he did other agendas.

The seneschal bowed, "Prince Phobos is expecting you. Honored Dread Father."

Truthfully he paid the man no attention, this world itself resembled Nirn as it had been once upon a time, or Medieval Earth, but more like Nirn. The planet itself was more like Nirn, as there were humans, and non humans inhabiting. Magic was particularly prevalent. The dark god walked towards the doors, which were pushed open by two separate winds as he approached them. "Phobos," Normally he wouldn't both with such trivialities as visiting his ward, and a boy in name, and appearance in name only.

Phobos was a man, and safely on the throne of this miserable little world. The boy was more than capable of seeing to his own defense, with his own magic. It also wasn't like he needed help, he could more than fend for himself. The platinum haired prince nodded. "Dread Father, I welcome you to my home."

He suppressed a chuckle, if the boy had been expecting a pleasant chat he was sorely mistaken. "Indeed I have good news. In some four years of earth, new _guardians…_" Sithis spat the term though there was a mix of disgust and amusement mixed together. In the end though for all the potential of amusement disgust one out, "Will be chosen. As to the whereabouts of your sister she is more likely on this particular continent." Sithis indicated North America on the map." He had considered Europe as an option, but with the girl's immense magical potential he surely would have heard something from the Black hand responsible for the continent. "The nation known as the United States is the most likely the location. Its neighbor to the north another,as you know since I have repeatedly told you the Guardians are generally chosen from a single area. I would suggest the north eastern and western coastal regions due to metropolitan development. Though there are native practitioners of the arts so do not immediately act on the first signs of magical energy. They have had nine years to suitably settle do not expect this to be easy." Sithis withdrew a bottle. "On a less ill boding note. This is the blood of Sanguine, an alcohol so potent it will loosen any man's tongue with but a single drop." The Daedric lord pulled back his hand and gave the blonde a warning glance, "It will also give you a nasty hangover not indifferent to having a Daedroth use your skull as a drum. When shared among friends and allies it strengthens ones resolve and dedication to the cause, and as I said no man who drinks this may speak false or deceive. Be moderate in its use such wine is not easy to come by. "

"Thank you." Phobos responded readily accepting the alcohol. Phobos's taste were... not profane, but he was more than a little spoiled. Still he was visiting, and he was a guest.

Earth posed a number of potential problems but Phobos was most interested in recovering his younger sister. Sithis, and by proxy though to a lesser extent so was Raiden, were interested in this but also concerned with the matter of the guardians. The Guardians of Kandrakhar would likely become Guardians of Earth as well.

There were millions of inhabited worlds in the Milky Way alone due to the interference of the ancients who had engineered machines to go about the process of terraforming worlds to sustain life. It'd been a largely automated process of course, the ancients rarely had had the patience to wait for anything.

Kandrakar was not one of those worlds, but it was the world that was used by the council who were a very annoying nuisance to the Dread Father. The world of Kandrakar existed beyond time and space because it was literally the result of the death of two gods at the very same moment in time and space.

The simultaneous deaths of an Aedric and a Daedric lord, It was for this reason that the world and the council were disliked greatly by both sets of gods in question. Kandrakar was of course hardly the only group of busybodies on the galactic seen but the fact of where they chose to reside did not endear them to the more powerful beings in the galaxy.

Sithis nodded, "When you locate the girl send Cedric." Advised the time traveler, unknowing of it as he was. "His abilities will be effective I am sure, however do not expect it to be easy war is brewing between the worlds. Powers will clash. Worlds are warring even now. Even now Earth itself is consumed in an alien attack... an attack by other worlders" He amended.

The attack itself didn't particularly concern him, these miserable shape shifters meant little to him. The mortals would likely not even loose a city over it, so he considered it beneath his notice. People would die yes, but such happened every day on a billion worlds across this galaxy.

-scene break-

In Sol, Raiden had waited aboard the Shinku Rai Tatsu the system lord surveyed the report from the long range sensors. He was already making plans for how to deal with the enemy. It'd been pulling away from earth when he'd arrived.

Two year ago not so long after the Summit the humans had finally managed to land 'Astronauts' on Mars. He hadn't cared, it'd been boring even with all the humans hopping about on their little blue world partying about such a meager achievement. They were always scrambling about with something or another.

No what had finally caught his eye were the intermittent signals being shot into space. Originally he'd assumed that they'd just been another of those silly little SETI satellite search things again, Raiden thought those were stupid as well. He was actually quite surprised the United States allowed such stupidity, but then again who could say.

"The ship does appear to be of crafted from biological matter, let us see how they like antimatter." Raiden smirked maliciously. He wanted all of the text data for his new weapons as he could. More to the point he needed specific data, yes he'd been collecting data all year but the ship had just completed a key refit. "Begin fold procedures arm all weapons fire as soon as we drop out from hyperspace focus all positron cannons on the center of the ship. We will take no chances despite being of inferior design and technology we will confront it as an equal."

The Shinku Rai Tatsu was a fairly large vessel at more than twelve hundred meters, the flagship held many lethal weapons but the ship Raiden now faced was larger by far perhaps equal to the scheduled Peacemillion's size. Not that he was particularly concerned.

Of course the Peacemillion, like a number of Raiden's newer vessels was designed by another being one in the actual employ of Sithis, was meant as a battleship. The Shinku Rai Tatsu was the same, to the point that though some weapons had been planned originally and the emplacements existed on the hull, complete with conduits, and everything, those weapons were just now being installed.

"My lord the rest of the fleet has arrived." Indeed they had, four more newly refit with positron cannon SRTs, the Shinku Rai Tatsu class's fleet syllable identification code, dropped out of hyper space flanked by Skyborne Calamity class battleships and hordes of type three Ha'tak.

Raiden nodded. In a concentrated blaze of light five pillars of light, caused by highly excited particles of energy, cut the unknown ship to ribbons. In truth he had more pressing matters to attend to. There was also the fact that Pendragon had not appreciated his destruction of the Beliskner a year prior. Not that he cared what the asgard commander thought, he'd spent the year fufilling his objectives, and it'd been such a good year too.

For centuries the goa'uld had claimed to rule the galaxy, but only in name, it was true that the bulk had been theirs. He looked around, the Jaffa were relaxed, pleased at their success. It was a quiet kind of pleased, a dignified kind of pleased.

He patted the genetically engineered Hok'tar's head gently, "Rei, carefully monitor the Earth, and Sokar's drones."

The Hok'tar, Rei, was all tall, lanky pale skin and dark hair in long tresses. "My lord their Hok'tar seem to have things well in hand, though I am tracking active military responses from individual governments."

That did make sense. The real focus was what the Hok'tar did, all scurrying against the aliens and such. The struggling of heroes against monsters. It was sure to be interesting to watch.

Chapter Conclusion

Helltanz's notes: So secret origin plays out largely off screen, though it is rather important to the plot.


	8. Chapter 8 Thanagarian Invasion

Chapter 8

Lightning Fervor

Helltanz's notes: Cronus (the Goa'uld) does not die, he does lose a Ha'tak on Juna but doesn't die, the Ha'tak is not destroyed as in what would have been the season four episode known as Exodus.

Chapter begin

–

The Sun Tzu was all flurry with activity. More so than it had really seen in the past year. It'd been wonderful news this whole last few weeks. Not much had occurred in the past two years. Apophis's loss of two Ha'tak had been the big deal, up until Sokar had decided to smash Apophis's domain. Then they'd all negotiated peace, and then it'd been boring in the intervening bit.

Raiden was impressed the Tauri had recently procured a Ha'tak, a fairly new type two produced by Cronus, said Ha'tak's existence was confirmed when Raiden had participated in a joint attack on a major Tok'ra base along with a group of the rest of the system lords. The attack on Vorash had been boring, they'd been unable to make an real headway against the Tok'ra, who had withdraw ahead of time.

SG-1 had withdrawn back to earth after one of Raiden's Daitenchi, the Powers, had destroyed the 'Sun bomb' at the System lord command. The Ha'tak survived, and under the control of the SGC much to the disapproval of Tok'ra or so Raiden had been informed. Even though the Tauri had gained such a ship it was nothing truly important in the grand scheme of things. Cronus, and Heru-ur were strengthening their alliance, and exchanging technology. Heru-ur and Cronus weren't the types to stab each other in the back unfortunately.

Raiden watched his fleet with pride, in the past two years his fleet had grown in size though most of his fleet still comprised of Ha'tak somewhere around fifty percent, about seventy percent of those Ha'tak where type twos. The rest of the Ha'tak which were apart of his fleet were the latest type threes.

His older models were entrusted to his underlords for defense of the fringe worlds, bolstering his defense forces. The rough half of his fleet were ships of the new models. Mostly escort vessels, though a number of new capitalships had been added. A Daitenchi, the Throne, soared past escorted by new Gat-04 Aozora Mobile suits. The introduction of mobile suits, just as Heru-ur and Cronus had a new model of fighter in the years.

That attack on the Tok'ra had been only memorable for one purpose Raiden had deployed Mobile suits, it was likely the type two under Tauri control would have been destroyed had they not jumped to hyperspace. Heru-ur had used his new fighters as well, they'd been... quite effective. He'd gotten the chance to see them perform in space some weeks after.

All in all not much had changed other than the use of mobile suits was now common practice in Raiden's attacks. Even the Ginn and Leo's were vastly superior to the outdated Death Gliders and even Alkesh. On average eight to ten Death gliders were needed to destroy a single Ginn. Fighting Heru-ur was a little closer to being even, his new fighters were better armed, but suffered the same problem with turning Death Gliders, but it was still an improvement. He imagined it was also because Heru-ur drilled his jaffa on fighter combat more strenuosly.

Oh well such was the price the others paid for not keeping up with technology. Numerous ships stood in orbit around Bairn floating in space Mobile suits either on patrol or completing exercises.

On Earth however things had been different. It'd actually been interesting. Talpa had launched his attack on Japan, which was unfortunately repelled by the wielder of the magical armors. There had been other factors, whose intervention could not have been predicted, but it'd been mainly the armors and their wielders.

The only thing that had saved Talpa from possible death was Raiden's presence the five armor bearers were quickly dispatched by Kenshin's 'Ruroni' side and sent back to earth, and the other factors had likewise been forced to retreat from the battle. As it stood at the moment launching another attack didn't look feasible without additional support, support which was at the moment better used elsewhere.

The year ahead looked interesting, what with Earth being so recently attacked..

– scene break-

Raiden liked to keep a network of vassals on the Tauri homeworld in order to keep track of certain things, and in the event that a task needed to be accomplished on the planet.

Talpa was one such vassal, though one who was involved in Raiden's greater dominion as well. As far as vassals went Talpa had a great deal of influence within the system lord's empire because Raiden could depend on him. It was hence why Raiden was so very much annoyed when the plan falling through, even if it had been due to events that could not have been foreseen.

The plan had gone well enough to start out with in any case with the other armors, and their owners, being successfully provoked into coming out into the open, after that things had started to fall apart.

It had been shortly into the plan and the 'attack' on Japan that Talpa's forces had been assaulted by other groups namely a coalition of heroes who had decided to intervene. It'd forced Raiden's hand to send Talpa some much needed 'back up' in the form of one of Raiden's other vassals.

It hadn't been the Justice League, which really would have annoyed the system lord considering that Sithis had made it abundantly clear that he had plans for them, but the temporary group had proven to be a nuisance.

Currently there was no real need to reattempt the plan, yes it was a nuisance, but for the time being it was simply more prudent to just wait for a better opportunity. Now that he knew who the other five armors were in the possession of they could wait until additional resources could be brought in so as to prevent another screw up.

Right now Talpa was busy occupied with his other duties, though no doubt he was plotting and sulking over his recent failure. Talpa was hardly Raiden's only high ranking member on earth, there were others the master of the Foot, Oroku Saki, was also available. Aoshi was otherwise occupied elsewhere in the galaxy

That was another avenue that Raiden had considered having the two reinforce the other if the need arose, it would certainly be of use since it would keep him from having to dispatch reinforcements.

Kenshin's more benign incarnation's deployment was also another issue. He was there keeping Talpaoccupied on Earth. It meant the system lord had a direct tie to making sure Talpa didn't go flying off the handle, which was possible given his recent embarrassment. It was a legitimate concern all things concerned.

Raiden sighed matters regarding Earth were becoming complicated especially with a number of issues which remained unresolved and new issues cropping up all the time, which was not good considering his plans were nearing their next stage. Sithis had become quite busy poking around with the wizards as it was. Then there was that big bang thing one of the Daedra had instigated in America for whatever reason.

– scene break-

A light flickered something, meaning a ship, had violated Tauri space and crashed. The sensor readout suddenly changed. A fleet had also just arrived and just shot down the ship. Raiden groggily played through the data again. Stupid Tauri, and their habit of attracting aliens, could they not go a year without an invasion, or attack at least. It was all he was asking. By their calendar in 1998, it'd been Apophis, a year later they hadn't even had the decency to get invaded by a major power no they had been invaded by a miserable cluster of roaches unworthy of the System Lords notice. It'd been several invasions, it'd been so many it'd been ridiculous. Sokar had not been happy, and an unhappy Sokar was a vindictive Sokar. The next year though they'd been nearly invaded by replicators, and after that it'd been Sokar's little white shape shifting freaks... Raiden hadn't actually know he'd been shooting what were his nominal allies, it wasn't like Sokar had told him. It would have been a nice fact to know.

This fleet though fleet were not matching any Goa'uld instead identified as a species the inhabited another portion of the galaxy. The goa'uld hadn't bothered with the rest up until Sokar's terrors well hyperdrive hadn't been fast enough, and then Ra had enforced his limitted expansion policy. So all the information they did have was that one side were called Thanagarians the other vessel was Gordaninan in origin.

"My lord."

Raiden shook his head it was a nuisance and a possible problem, but not likely to be worth the trouble. "Negative we do nothing the Thanagarians are likely not doing anything dangerous to the planet. It can wait." Raiden was fairly displeased the searches on earth had failed to locate either Oroku's designated target or any real progress regarding the Shinso. He didn't have time to redirect forces to kick an upstart bunch of aliens off Earth, if the Asgard couldn't deal with it immediately then he shouldnt' have to.

For the time being it seemed much more prudent to simply wait given that at the moment there were other matters which needed to be addressed.

That was about as far as Raiden got before his head split, metaphorically speaking. For a Jaffa there is no greater terror in knowing your god to whom you are loyal to above all has a grim and terrible otherside.

Saito was nearly 300, positively ancient by Jaffa standards. He'd had seen Sithis in his service to Raiden only four times in those years, and he had counted himself lucky every day for such small mercies. Sithis was, radiated something other than the storm. Sithis never reared save when there were grim and terrible tidings to be had, and Saito that itself was a bad omen.

Raiden was normally immune to such things. When some summoned Sithis, itself a rare occurrence, but normally Raiden didn't even notice it. This this was different, he could feel the magic as it pulsed at him calling the Daedra in all terrible glory, and it hurt.

-scene break-

Wayne Manor had also been a key fixture for Gotham, for Gotham culture especially. The Wayne family had always played an important role in Gotham city, and their home was an iconic symbol of the city. That Wayne industries completely dominated Gotham, probably did not help that image. Wayne Industries, and its subsidaries did good work, but they were still a monopoly..

Earth had been all but conquered by the Thanagarians, well it was true there were scattered bits of resistance but not sufficient to push the invasion off yet. The Thanagarians had positioned above most major cities. "I have a way to save earth?" the Batman stated to his fellow members of the Justice League.

"Ok." The team's resident speedster declared circling the billionare crime fighter, "come on what's the plan Bats? Know you have one, share with the rest of us." Asked Flash zipping about around the bat cave.

"Stand back." Ordered the Dark Knight of Gotham. Batman, also known as Bruce Wayne, lit candle and began chanting in what was effectively a dead language to be specific a variation of the language of the Ancients.

"What's he doing?"

"I believe it is a summoning ritual." The Amazonian princess remarked as she studied carefully the dark knight's work, "Though I am not sure as to whom he is calling." Diana responded. "Even the gods of Olympus-"

Sithis cleared his throat, "Hello detective. There are easier methods of summoning me you realize." The sclera of his eyes were black and it was indeed Sithis's body. The daedric lord had surveyed the Thanagarians, and was unimpressed. The Gordannians worshipped a pantheon of Daedra, not all the Daedra but a number of them. He was also unimpressed by their forces. The goa'uld might have been pleased by their engineering of such reasonably sized ships, and if by pleased one meant an opportunist wanted to seize it all to repurpose it for his own shipbuilding. The Daedra wouldn't care, one side worshipped them the other didn't the choice was easy.

"Sithis." The dark night lightly inclining his head in a bow of respect. Bruce was not exactly keen on doing this, but at the moment there really wasn't that much of a choice considering the Thanagarians had a stranglehold on Earth.

The Green Lantern all but flipped his wig and he had a good reason, at least in his opinion, "Batman you can't be serious summoning him." John Stewart exclaimed in a mix of shock and anger. "Do you know who you just pulled out of Oblivion? Out of the void into the mortal realm?"

Even as batman nodded, Sithis nodded, "Ah Green Lantern. You keep interesting company Detective, a Martian, I remember your people well, once upon a time," Raiden turns to Wonder Woman and chuckles much to the Amazonian's ire. "I apologize child it is not you I laugh at merely the circumstances of our meeting like this for the first time," He murmured amused, the Goa'uld Hades was by Goa'uld standards an Abomination, with a capital A. His magic had been strong, and Hades had delved into sorcery lending it to his brother Zeus. Oddly many of Cronus's spawn who had betrayed him had been magical, a curious bit of trivia. "you father is a colleague of mine that and the Detective was once dealing with a certain deranged mortal," the god of death paused "a conversation for another time for alas this is hardly a social summoning I take it," He commented turning back to Bruce, "who do you wish I kill. Oh yes you don't like that term. Who would you like to remove from this realm?" he asked. Truthfully he had a good idea, but it was possible the great Batman would try to minimize casualties.

"I want you to free earth from the Thanagarians." Bruce didn't intend to leave the matter as it was of course, after all he was dealing with an extremely powerful being. He didn't let Sithis take a step, "Your price?" called the Dark Knight of Gotham, "what is it going to be to settle this?"

"I have nothing at the moment I would waste asking of you. I will think of a task and you can take you pick. I'm sure there is something I can come up with that you can handle without compromising your no kill policy. However don't expect me to get back to you soon on the matter there is a lot going on at the moment so I will just deal with the Thanagarians and get back to my work." Sithis responded disappearing.

"Do gods take checks?"  
"No," It was Diana that answered. Batman didn't say anything, even when prodded on the matter.

-scene break-

Raiden's head was throbbing he was within his own dominion. He gritted his teeth he was furious. He'd all but demanded that he be allowed to deal with the Thanagarians."Prepare the fleet we going to go bird hunting." The system lord remarked irritably.

"My lord?" Saito questioned, "Do we go to war against Heru'ur this day?"

'Human idioms are lost on Jaffa.' Raiden sighed in disappointment. "We are removing the Thanagarians from Earth. Prepare the fleet," Raiden vanished again going off to attend to other matters. Raiden smacked the downward key on the lift leaving the old jaffa to managing the jaffa.

Back on earth at Stargate command things were relatively running normal, at least in a sense. Daniel's lab was as it always was despite the fact that Earth had been invaded by the Thanagarians. As it stood life at Stargate Command, as the Thanagarian's did not know of the stargate program, was normal for the flagship team for the moment anyway. Right now everyone at the base was awaiting the return of Earth's Ha'tak which had been outfitted with a cloaking device supplied by Sokar.

Not that anybody could explain why the mysterious exiled goa'uld system lord, whose fleet was enormous and his industrial might extensive, was helping the Tauri, well no one but Raiden anyway. So naturally when the system lord had dialed in.

Raiden didn't particularly feel like sharing that. The system lord's hologram had manifested in front of the gate, and all but demanded a meeting.

So naturally Hammond had briefing room B set aside, and called for a meeting of the SGC's officers. "So Raiden popped in again?" O'neill asked, "How many times is this now?"

The aging texan didn't look pleased by this announcment, "Major Carter have we determined how he manages this, yet?" asked General Hammond  
"No sir, we're not sure how Raiden is projecting the hologram, or how he manifests physcially." Carter looked over the compiled report, "As it is it doesn't seem that he's leaving anything behind either not with the increase of base security and the base checks every four hours. Chances were that any device remaining undetected would slim especially with Thor giving us an Asgard scanner."

The Asgard sensor was a relative new addition to the SGC and another one had been installed at Area 51. It was designed to hopefully prevent any unwanted occurences at the SGC's two primary bases. Area 51 was presently was presently preparing for what was called Operation Starcross, aka the lets nuke the Thanagarians, with naquadah if we have to.

"What about the Thanagarians, have we confirmed what that facility is."

Major Carter brought up a projection of the facility that was under construction, "Yes sir," She remarked some kind of hyperspace generator we estimate its used to bypass somekind of space defense at the cost of destroying the planet."

"So it's a safe bet Raiden is attacking to protect his interest in the world."

"Probably." O'neill agreed, "More than likely though he'll claim the Asgard treaty as the reason since it means he doesn't have to explain anything, just like always. The other option is Sokar's going to show up." O'neill shrugged, neither particularly appealed to him.  
The Texan frowned, obviously the system lord wasn't acting out of the goodness of his heart, "Have we any idea what this interest is?" asked Hammond

"No sir," Carter responded, "though we may believe it may concern the event in Japan shortly after the Beliskner was destroyed."

Jack frowned, "You mean that massive cloud of shadows and the army of Samurai armor that didn't have anything in them and knocked F 15s out of the sky," The colonel commented, "Look I'll admit Raiden's got to be up to something, but I'm not saying blame the guy for something happening because Japan is involved."

The irony was Raiden had had a hand in Talpa's little disturbance in Japan. "Well this is a nice conversation," The system lord remarked through his hologram, "The Thanagarian force will be destroyed shortly. I realize you have summoned back your ha'tak, though I do not believe it or Sokar will arrive in time. I must advise you that assaulting the Thagarians is unnecessary, and that another power may also arrive to intervene in your defense though I cannot assure it. That is largely all. I am sure your Justice League has its own plan, I assure however I will settle this, that is all." The Hologram folded and vanished, and the gate shut down.

Raiden settled into his throne aboard the Shinku Rai Tatsu, before he nodded to one of his warriors, "Attack Fleet status." Raiden inquired idly as he looked over his station's own date panel.

"Ready milord." Responded the Jaffa. "As you have ordered we will drive the enemy from the world of the Tauri for the honor of word. In noble fidelity to your compact with the Asgard."

He nodded in response, "Power engines," Raiden commanded, "Proceed to activate FTL drives. Launch." Hyperspace windows opened up in front of the Bairn as the fleet moved, lots of Hyperspace windows. The Goa'uld so rarely went to war, and with good reason. To control the bulk of the galaxy required a fleet. The Systems Lords, the High Council System Lords, not pathetic excuses for one like Moloc, commanded thousands of capital ships. That number would only blossom with Sokar's reappearance.

- scene break-

To defy the System Lords was foolish, all of the Jaffa knew this fact. These 'Thanagarians' would feel the lightning of an angered go. For the Jaffa aboard Raiden's fleet this was no different than any other war. Ra's death had seen other changes. New technology was being adapted everyday. At first it had been merely the Jaffa Guard, now new armors were filtering down to Elite Jaffa Battalions, and weapons would be following soon, as their god commanded. Now though was the time for war.

When the invasion had begun the Thanagarians had quickly moved to capture the Justice League's orbiting headquarters and had transferred a significant force to man the facility, this was for amongst other reasons in that the Watchtower had extremely advanced sensors. "Sir we are detecting a massive hyperspace anomaly." Stated a thanagarian soldier from one of the Watchtower's sensor stations to his superior. In the years to come Wayne Industries like several other US based corporations would be tasked to join in projects tied to the advancements of the Stargate program.

The winged humanoid in charge of the station looked up in surprise. "What?" At this point it was to late the windows had seperated into near countless ships arriving just beyond Earth's orbit.

Raiden brought the channel open, he had no way of knowing how long he had before Sithis struck. "Attention Thanagarians your prescence is in violation of the Asgard-System lords treaty you are ordered to withdraw from the sector," Raiden's voice boomed over the subspace communications arrays, "failure to comply with the treaty will result in your destruction."

A jaffa bowed, "My lord we are receiving a transmission." He announced bringing up a forward projection of the invasion force's leader.

"This is commander Hro Talak of the Thanagarian armada." Stated the winged humanoid, "Whom am I adressing." Came the message from the Thanagarian

He raised an eyebrow, "I am Raiden in the name of the System lords collective, I order you to withdraw in compliance with Asgard protected planets treaty if you fail to comply you will suffer destruction." Raiden turned off the communicator's open channel from his own station. "Ready mobile suits for sortie." He ordered, he had no patience for this, he had to be running out of time until the Daedric fleet arrived.

"I am afraid I cannot my orders insist I stay until we have completed our building project."

"I am afraid that I cannot allow the planet to be destroyed. You have numbers we superior skill and technology." As far as things actually went Raiden's vessels capital ships actually outnumbered the Thanagrian fleet though not by much. What the system lord was actually referring to was fighters. "I should it is time to clip your wings." Raiden ended the transmission "All ships weapons release. Launch mobile suits. All ships launch initial salvo, order Peacemillions to deploy gravity wells." After all he didn't want them to escape.

Chapter conclusion

Helltanz's notes:


	9. Chapter 9 Thanagarian Invasion II

Chapter 9

Lightning Fervor

Helltanz's notes: I'm less than thrilled with the rewrite of this chapter strictly speaking, and while I think it does need more work that isn't likely to happen in the short or mid term.

Chapter begin

Raiden wasted little time pressing his assault when the Thanagarians refused him. Energy and projectiles ripped through space shooting towards the Thanagarian ships. The large Kite shaped battleships released three-dimensional cross-shaped satellites at the intersect were four ball like devices. The devices worked by creating uneven gravity 'tides' which created zones where hyperspace travel became increasingly hazardous "Gravity well generators deployed, Lord Raiden." Announced a sensor officer.

The Shinto kami nodded, "Launch mobile suits." Ordered the system lord. 'The only dangerous thing about these thing is the metal their ships are made.' He knew from Daedric intelligence all of their technology minus the hyper drive was substandard compared to standard Goa'uld technology from two thousand years ago. He was not quite certain why their hyperdrive was as advanced as it was given their lack of well naquadah, but it hardly mattered.

"Beginning launch sequence." More lights soared from the Raiden's fleet, Mobile Suits which were exiting the hangars. As far as logistics went Raiden's forces had a number of designs in service most of which only had a few common parts, and they each served a slightly different role. Most military's on Earth would consider this something which was a bad idea, but this was the system lord's choice.

"MVF-M11C Murasames take off complete." One of the Fighter Control Officers announced as fighters launched the dorsal hangars. Raiden was testing every possible design he could. Personally he liked the Murasame for the most part, their fighter capacity made them particularly useful, but they were 'light' armor by mobile suit terms as it was coming to be classified, which he didn't so much like.

"ZGMF-1000 ZAKUs away." Stated another officer at a nearby terminal. He'd been initially rather pleased with the Zakus, but now was less so. They were really an update of the old Ginns, and strictly speaking now Raiden wasn't quite so pleased with their performance. True their modular capacity was nice, but Raiden just wasn't as pleased with them as he thought he would have been.

The last of the new series launched, "All Gat-04 Aozoras have launched." A third officer announced, "Phase three Main battle Mobile suits complements have all been launched. In adddition all our Elite Mobile Suit Teams have been deployed as well."The 04 shared the Zaku's capacity for multirole operations through the use of modular attack equipment. He was strictly speaking rather disappointed in the 04 as well. This batch of machines had been a rather bit of let down.

Right now Raiden was more concerned with launching his smaller craft than going toe to toe against the inferior Thanagarian capital ships, "Tsuigara class and Type threes deploy drop capsules. Our goal is to drive the Thangarians from the earth drive them from the cities."

The bottom portions of the green Frigates separated similarly shaped capsules exited from the bottom of the type three Ha'tak, the exception of them being silver, and began to enter the atmosphere over major locations. Locations like Cheyenne Mountain, Area Fifty-One, New York City, LA, Gotham, Metropolis, London, Frankfurt, Berlin, Paris, Hong Kong, Athens, Giza, the Gobi Desert, Beijing, were only among a few where the Capsules descended. Some of these locations were where the Thanagarians were only beginning to move against, or hadn't moved at all towards.

It was a pity, Raiden had considered landing on Giza, but Type 2 and 3 Ha'tak were incompatible with the old landing pads.

"Capsules away my lord." Stated the officer responsible for the flagship's atmospheric tracking sensors.

He nodded, even as another salvo savaged the Thanagarian fleet. In truth the Thanagarian armada was pitiful their anti capital ship weapons were completely useless against Goa'uld shields. It was their fighters which were the dangerous thing, well dangerous to his fleet's own small craft, and to his agenda of driving them offworld with his new weapons.

"Send down some of the Daitenchi, Albion and a few of the new Minerva class vessels to help drop capsule forces." Raiden ordered. "Once they've deployed set course negative thirty degrees bring the dorsal guns to bear."

"It shall be done as you command my lord." One of the Fleet commanders responded as the sublight engines of the flagship powered up, flaring and accelerating the massive vessel and the nose tipped downward.

Turrets and batteries reoriented to hold their bearing on their targets and multiple weapons came to life in a concentrated salvo as the Shinku Rai Tatsu's dorsal mounted weapons fired.

The system lord frowned as he looked over the reports. He had expected the Thanagarians to deploy extensive numbers of fighter craft but this was far beyond his expectations. Still if the Thanagarians believed their primitive fighters would be sufficient they were greatly mistaken. The Shinku Rai Tatsu and its escorts advanced closer pushing through the cold void of space above the Tauri homeworld.

Twin blasts destroyed an approaching Thanagarian ship punching through its hull in two separate sections and causing the vessel to catastrophically explode, even as a group of enemy fighters attempted to come in for an attack run. Truthfully the use KEW ciws guns had probably not been the wisest logistical choice, still they were very effective at swatting both death gliders, and these Thangarian fighters from the sky. The aerofoil profile of the Thanagarian fighters were similar to death glider, which was curious given their apparent lack of Naquadah.

An Izumo class, judging by its color an Orochi model, fired its positron cannons tearing through a carrier, which was likely the home base for the destroyed Thanagarian fighters. It was as the Tauri would say a turkey shoot, or an exceptionally target rich enviroment. The Thanagarian warships stood no much for the multi megaton anti, goa'uld, capital ship weapons, and only the Thanagarian shields prevented tertiary weapons from being devastatingly effective.

Two Izumo, one was a Tsukuyomi the other another Orochi came along side The shinku rai tatsu. The two Izumo classes's space superiority Murasames made quick work of the inferior Thanagarian fighters. As it was the Thangarians could take the losses though, there were thousands, and thousands of them. If Raiden had still been employing death gliders this would have been a fairer fight, at least with regards to fighters.

"Lord Raiden, lady Artemis is requesting to speak to you-" Rei announced Shinku Rai Tatsu over by the subspace communications network controls.

"Can this wait?" Raiden watched as more fighters swarmed pouring plasma onto the shields of his flagship, as the CIWS guns strained to kill them all quickly enough. He was really becoming annoyed at the sheer number of the tiny craft the winged humans had deployed to combat his forces.

The Thanagarians while technologically inferior to the system lord's forces were able to field so many smaller craft they were vastly outnumbering the much smaller number of mobile suits. His squadrons were reporting losses just because of the numbers.  
As it stood Raiden's new humanoid war machines while benefiting from much more advanced technology and packing far greater firepower and armor simply were outnumbered by a high margin. The thing was the difference in firepower between fighters wasn't so great as the gulf of devastating power between opposing capital ships.

This of course meant that they would be sustaining losses until the fighters could be thinned significantly by the mobile suits or warships entered the range of their own CIWS batteries.

"She does not believe so my lord." Responded Rei.

"What is it then?" As expected Artemis's report was completely unimportant given the situation. The report in question was not tactically relevant at the moment, but it did involve another of the new mobile suit designs; the Virgo. Raiden regretted minorly snapping at the Hok'tar girl causing to reel back in her chair

"Understood sir."

A blast of positronic energy sliced through five Thanagarian warships. On the other side of the destroyed ships another Shinku Rai Tatsu class battleship. The name Shinku Ame Tatsu translated to mean roughly the dragon of Crimson Rain. The other battleship fired another eight blasts from its other Positron cannons dealing immense damage to another group of Thanagarian capital ships. The secret of thse sustained beams was the use of lasers to clear channels for the postitron particles to travel through.

Raiden's fleet had diverged moving to get underneath their enemies thus giving them the ability to fire their missile directly into the underside of the Thanagarian's hulls with little impediment. With this there were downsides. You couldn't shoot down a laser, and it did make sense the Thanagarians would given their preference for fighters an abundant use of CIWS emplacements.

With that maneuver executed and the damage done Raiden let his varying commanders handle their own decisions. This lead to the Fleet separating into separate taskforces and a number of which were now ascending 'upwards' punching through the mass of Thanagarian ships.

Due to the fact that Raiden had ordered ships to be deployed to the Earth's surface the Thanagarians in orbit did outnumber Raiden's vessels but it did little to effect the battle in their favor because of the technological gap. Nothing in the Thanagarian arsenal could hurt the fleet's shields, and while the swarm of fighters threatened escorts, those same escorts were also the ones best suited to destroying the mass of fighters, because that had been precisely what they'd intended to do.

-scene break-

On Earth the mobile suits had landed. Truthfully on the ground the mobile suits were at a slightly greater disadvantage by an large. In the sky the new Phase three Babi took flight to fufill its mission of providing air support to the forces fighting the Thanagarians. The Babi was largely designed for air to air combat, unlike most of its fellows.

"Sir the Thanagarians that are moving on the Tauri stargate facility." Announced an officer to his god,

He nodded not that the Jaffa could see it, given the officer was presently focused on his own fight, "Understood." He remarked, "Then we should hurry and eliminate them." Raiden watched with pride as mobile suits swarmed the antiquated in design Thanagarian fighters and warships with lethal results. It annoyed him his new superior weapons of war were taking losses

The Thanagarian warships were not lacking in the form of fighter defense. Coupled with their shields, and their own fighter screens Raiden's mobile suits were well occupied indeed.

As it stood though the Thanagarian fighters suffered from lacked any form of significant missile defense making them easy pray to the ZAKUs and Aozoras and even easier prey to the transforming Murasames. This meant there was Much less the Thanagarian's could do against the more powerful mobile suits piloted by the elites who were in charge of individual combat groups.

Still it would be capital ships that would decide this. Not even a thousand years ago would the Thanagarians at their present level have been able to challenge the Goa'uld in a battle in space. It was true indeed in that kind of conflict it was likely Thanagarian fighters would have slaughtered Death Gliders en mass, but that wasn't the case this day.

The advancement of mobile suit technology was not entirely centered on mass production mobile suits, but also of weapons for elite aces. The goa'uld rewarded their elites, Heru-ur afforded specialized, and highly detailed, and customized fighters to his aces as well. For Raiden it was the same with his mobile suit aces.

Speaking of whom a cluster of whom were joining the fray. The group approaching was comprised of a single 3-ZGMF-56, 3-ZGMF-X23S and 3- ZGMF-X24S. Each commander accompanied by new Phase three Taurus. The Taurus like the Murasame was a transforming frame, an innovation Raiden found intriguing. Like the Murasame its downside was its comparatively light armament, though the Taurus was somewhat less fragile than the Murasame, and was better outfitted with option hand weaponry.

The squadrons here on earth had one purpose press the attack on against the Thanagarians. In addition to the cities various strike groups had been dropped to the surface of the Tauri homeworld to attack the Thanagarian construction sites. It was at those sites that the bulk of heavier firepower had been landed, particularly with escorts to get through the shields.

The Tauri Stargate complex was a special exception to this of course. As was their 'area 51' the last thing Raiden wished was an accidental naquadah detonation. The strike team altered its course, "Listen to me, we must attack this group of Thanagarians here massing in the human city of Colorado springs to stop any reinforcements to their forces moving on the Tauri stargate facility." The pilot of the ZGMF-56 announced, before ording the pilot the ZGMF-X24S to handle it. The other pilot grudgingly compiled break off with his squadron of Taurus mobile suits to fly towards the city.

Chapter conclusion

Helltanz's note: Giza and Athens are important Cities to the Goa'uld.


	10. Chapter 10 Disclosure Part I

Chapter 10

Lightning Fervor

Helltanz's notes:

-chapter begin-

Stargate Command, despite its closeness to Colorado springs, and being a major military installation, or perhaps because of it, had largely been ignored. It'd given the SGC plenty of time to lock down the facility, and secure it from potential assault. The Thanagarians had thought little of moving on facilities given their neutralization of the coventional ballistic missiles, which was precisely why they hoped that the goa'uld busters, with their stealth coating might have a chance.

The new versions of the missiles had a number of improvements to the original ones employed a few years previous against Apophis's ha'tak, including a refined detonating mechanism. The NID hoped vocally even that the radiation from enhanced nuclear detonation from the naquadah would be effective at eliminating the Thanagarian fighters.

Walter looked up from the radio station he was sitting. "General Hammond," He announced as the forces on the other end continued to update him on the situation. "Thanagarian ground troops are advancing on the complex."

Hammond nodded, it'd be the infantry to worry about, and with the tight confines of the corridors they could tie the birdmen down for hours on individual levels, once they got to below the surface. The only real concern were the shafts. "What about in Space, son?" asked the Texan

"Raiden's troops are inflicting massive casualites, Space Command expect him orbital dominace in the hour, but he seems to prioritizing putting his ships over Thanagarian ground positions. He may attempt orbital bombardment" Another air force officer relayed the inquiry, "sir, there are multiple craft are descending into the Atmosphere- sir the craft are breaking open."  
"Missles?" Hammond asked wondering if they were MIRVs, or whatever the Goa'uld might call such weapons if they chose to employ. Given the goa'uld firepower advantage in space it seemed overkill.

"No sir, Radar, and optics say they look like troop carriers. Raiden's-" the officer paused unsure of what precisely he was supposed to call them considering they were freaking giant robots.

"Mobile suits, Lt." Suggested Carter peering at the video screen, "Its a recent development for ground territorial supressions," Which was the fancy way of saying blowing shit up on the ground.

"Thank you major, have just made land fall," He paused receiving another brief update, "We've confirmed multiple squadrons have landed in and around Colorado springs and are contesting Thanagarian prescence in the city."

Outside the base another four pods were dropped from orbit when they opened each pod was contained eight mobile suits. The total disposition of forces were a single 3-ZGMF-x88s, plus six 3-ZGMF-1000's ZAKUs, four 3-ZGMF-1001's ZAKU Reitatsus, seven were 3-Gat-04 Aozora, all of which were equiped with A4E1 Jet Strikers, while the remaining fourteen are 2-GAT-02L2 Tachi L. Half of those tachi were equipped with E-X03 Launcher equipment and the other half with standard equipment. Individual breakdown of the Zakus came two outfitted in A1 Gunner equipment, two outfitted with M Blaze equipment, the remaining two outfitted with K Slash equipment. While with the Reitatsus amongst the group one was outfited with A1 Gunner, another with M Blaze and the last two with K Slash equipment.

Such a breakdown had been specifically intended so that the reinforcements could better hold the line until additional forces could be freed up to join the defense. As it was even with the overhead Daitenchi class assault ship that was all the while launching 3-AMA-953 BABI and 3-MVF-M11C Murasames from its forward hangars they'd be significantly out numbered.

A column of approaching Thanagarian hover tanks exploded before they could get within the range of their weapons. Jack whistled appreciatory for the assistance since he wasn't quite sure how effective Earth anti armor weapons were going to be against those tanks. Though strictly speaking they'd find out soon enough. Cheyenne mountain's perimeter had been thoroughly reinforced, especially as troops had filtered in.

"If understand the meaning of the action correctly I aggree O'Neill." Teal'c stated retaining his composure in face of the situation. "We should however prepare for an assault by the Thanagarian soldiers, Raiden's forces are not likely to prioritize infantry."

As planned similar landings take place across the planet where there is a significant Thanagarian presence. The new forces were making quick work of the Thanagarians, much to the cheering of the people of earth. Of course they weren't aware of who these newcomers were either. At this point though few peopled cared.

Raiden had spent the last millennium developing technology and was finally getting the opportunity to test out these new weapons in depth in a planet wide battle against a hostile opponent. He was quite pleased about this, though it would have been pleasing if this had been a rival goa'uld he was crushing.

Earth was a much to important planet to allow to be damage in any significant way, and this was an opportunity he was loath to waste. As it stood it also gave him the chance to show up the Asgard, which was always a plus.

Missiles and kinetic projectiles weapons were very effective but the goa'uld by and large had ignored them for so long because it required 'ammunition'. Additionally shields tended to be better suited to resisting such munitions. Raiden didn't mind the issue even if it did complicate logistics, because as far as things went the weapons tended to be effective.

The majority of Goa'uld weapons technology on the starship level were large scale plasma weapons, or the extremely rare particle cannon or laser. In short most Goa'uld simply chose to rely on large scale plasma weapons and that was good enough, Raiden, having access to what he did, preferred efficiency.

Some of his newer ships were small because they had a much more narrow purpose. Because of this they required less resources to build than the megastructure of Ha'tak, which were over a kilometer in length and width, with the newest ships even larger. Of course Raiden still retained some part of ego and had every intention of building a fleet of megastructure sized ships.

Each system lord commanded a large fleet of Ha'tak class vessels, and as did he as he was apart of that body. The Thanagarians were greatly outmatched with regards to technology and couldn't, with their level of forces, hope to stand against the System Lord's might.

Still they would try to oppose the Shinto Kami's will, and their deaths would serve as a reminder to those who would seek to defy the treaty with the Asgard, and of course set the stage for future relations with Earth. After this there would be no denying to the people of the first world that yes there were alien empires out there, but the Stargate getting disclosed just yet that was unlikely. Of course strictly speaking the Earth knew there were Alien Empires out there.

No it was much more likely that since the 'Justice League', who greatly interested both Raiden and his other half by the way, had faster than light travel the government would likewise claim that they had made contact with other civilizations. No doubt the human governments would have some trouble in maintaining control due to certain complaints, but it was unlikely to be anything serious.

-scene break-

It was hardly uncommon for the briefing rooms in the SGC to be used like this. Some weeks had passed since the Thanagarian invasion and occupation had ended, and the world was starting to pick up the pieces. There were a lot of questions regarding things, and the powers in Washington had decided it was time to let the cat out of the bag.

Right now there were a few major protests going on about talks to establish an orbital defense grid notably complaints about putting nuclear weapons into orbit, but these matters didn't concern the system lord.

Earth was starting to pick up the pieces, and defense contracts and defense spending was going up. All the politicians wanted to be seen as being proactive. The people of the Tauri did not want to be invaded again, and their preparing technology served the system lord's agenda nicely.

Seizing control of the Earth directly would be far, far too much trouble, especially considering the number of other much more pressing matters which existed. Due to these other issues Raiden was content to let Earth fight its own battles against the other system lords. Sokar might have been willing to spend the men to hold earth, but he certainly wasn't.

After all if Earth weakened the other system lords it would only leave him in a stronger position and the time was coming when he would put his plans into action.

Delegates from several major world nations, China, Russia, France, England sat around the table. Unknown to those gathered Raiden was observing from Orbit via the immensely power sensors of his flagship. Truthfully the summit didn't concern him, it was the pressure to fold the SGC into, or with other organizations that concerned his attention.

"The Americans are hiding something and have been for years now." the Chinese ambassador stated irritably.

"Yes my government believes the same." Colonel Chekov agreed nodding his head, then again the Americans were always hiding things. It came with the territory, but generally it didn't involve aliens... well not ussually.

"Gentlemen, we couldn't help but over here." the English ambassador ambled on over and agreed.

"Yes, the American's are up to something." Agreed the Frenchman. "Of course they usually are, but this is something a bit above their usual secrets,"

"They did summon us here for a reason."

Major Davis stepped forward, "Please be seated gentlemen." Everyone took their appropriate seats, though some were more sullen about it than others.

"Thank you all for coming as you know we are all troubled by the recent invasion and subsequent intervention of another alien race to repulse the invasion, given said invasion our government has decided the other major nations of the world need to be apprised of a project out of this facility for the last several years."

Stargate Command's commanding officer spoke up, "The Project is known as the Stargate Program." Hammond stated.

Major Davis gestured to the Stargate. "This is the Stargate, the device we have set up here was originally discovered in nineteen twenty eight where it had laid buried for several thousand years. In nineteen forty-five a team of scientists hoping to find military applications for the successfully established a stable wormhole by the process of random dialing. It was for all intents and purposes a lucky accident, which they were unable to repeat. Up until several years ago the Stargate remained inactive, when this man, Dr. Daniel Jackson, joined the Program." It was probably a bad idea to be telling potential rivals about how critical Jackson had been to the program but given the risks it had been deemed acceptable. "Dr. Jackson successfully deciphered the symbols on the gate allowing us to begin routine exploration of alien worlds. Since that time we have explored hundreds of worlds. Thousands more remain to be explored."

"What?"

"This is absurd." Remarked another. "Ok you've had your laugh what were really called here to discuss that you think is so important considering the recent alien invasion."

Raiden chuckled, and would have except that he considered it prudent to proceed to intervene... Sokar volunteering to speak with the leaders of the Tauri might have had something to do with that. "I apologize for my tardiness I had something to attend to." The God failed to elaborate though, which notably worried General Hammond, though the aging Texan didn't care comment in front of the politician.

"Yes and who are you and how did you get here exactly?"

Raiden did not appreciate the sudden question, "I am the system lord Raiden," The tone he used was brusque, and dissmissive of the ambassador, answering the who, but not bothering to answer the other question. "I am here to insure everyone understands and follows the treaty."

The Pentagon liason officer sighed, interjecting before things got out of hand "It was his fleet which repulsed the Thanagarians." Major Davis elaborated, in truth it'd been fortunate they had detected Sokar's fleet massing in hyperspace before Raiden had delivered the coup de grace against the hyperspace bypass. "You see Earth is part of a treaty known as the Asgard-System Lord Protected Planets Agreement. This Galaxy is inhabited by numerous sentient species. Approximately a little more than half the galaxy is under the control of the System Lord Collective roughly sixty five percent the remaining lesser thirty percent is mostly in turmoil, among the races who inhabit that region are the Thanagarians and the Gordanians amongst a few others, most of these races who have control more than one solar system are outside what is known as the stargate network."

"So there are several different alien races." The Frenchman commented. "We kind of already knew this what with the Justice League traipsing about the globe." The ambassador did have a point the last several years had been rather

"Yes well more then several."

Another ambassador interjected into the explanation that the Major was glad he was the one explaining things, as opposed to the system lord. "So these Asgard then are part of this lesser forty percent of space."

"No the Asgard are-" Kinsey arrived with all of the usual bluster and hullabaloo he made whenever he decided to show up anywhere.

"Sorry I'm late gentleman I had a meeting on the hill." He announced loudly his tone indicating his own inflated sense of self worth.

"Senator Kinsey sit down you will abide by the appropriate decorum." Raiden snapped more than a little irritated at the blatant tauri breach of protocol. "To explain for the major who seems unable to maintain order," and Raiden dared for any of these ingrates to interupt him "The Asgard inhabit the Ida Galaxy, where they are the dominant power. Only the most powerful of the High Council of system lords have the technology to compete with them. The Asgard are an ancient and law abiding race, to whom you owe your miserable continued current existence to, for taking you under their protection. I'm finished," He added to Kinsey.

"Yes well, what have I missed?"  
"Your officers and this young man have informed us your men have repeatedly traveled to alien worlds repeatedly." The British representative stated, his tone indicating he wasn't totally convinced, though he obviously wasn't completely ruling it out since the Justice League did have space ships after all.

"Yes well what they said is all true. The air force goes through the damn thing on a daily basis so do Mr. Raiden's forces." The system lord wrinkled his nose in at the method of addressing him.

"Does everyone in your government know about this?"  
"As Chairman of the Senate appropriations committee Senator Kinsey was given a full briefing." Explained the pentagon liaison officer. "on specifically what we were doing here at this base."  
"The truth of the matter is I demanded to know where all that money was going, and believe you me, we're talking about a lot of money. We are choosing to release this information because of the recent invasion. Earth is not only threatened by those raises but is in imminent threat due to the Stargate Program's flagship team SG-1."

Raiden frowned, this really was going to be one of those couldn't he have convinced Yu to come to this, but no Yu had to busy today, Sokar had been all too eager to come speak with the Tauri, something about esteemed place in ordered domains.

"So these aliens-" The English ambassador stated,  
Major Davis nodded, "The Goa'uld." He supplied helpfully to the ambassador.  
"Mm-hmm. They built the Stargate, did they?"

Raiden shook his head, "No the original gate system was built "No the original gate system was built by the ancients in the centuries preceeding the war in Heaven. Today the Alteran, and Ayelied as well most likely, " He stated, "some of whom remained on earth while many others left millennia ago left descendants, amongst these like Colonel O'neill. We merely utilize the gate network because it is convenient, just as the asgard do to link our worlds with out relying on space ships."

Kinsey scowled at the mention of O'neill, but didn't say anything, mainly because Hammond had mentioned that protocol for these meetings required people to speak one at a time and the goa'uld considered it a major taboo to break this rule. Not that he was all that concerned he was US senator.

"The Goa'uld may frequently use the gate system however their main tool is their use of powerful warships capable of interstellar travel." Added in major Davis. "Fleet wise these ships serve as their principle means of defense."

One of the Ambassadors nodded, "Such as the ones used against the Thanagarians a few weeks ago." The Frenchman stated, "These are the Goa'uld's forces."  
"Yes though most Goa'uld fleets still consist of Ha'tak as opposed to Raiden's fleet, which is composed of newer diverging specialized role vessels." He remarked, "Each individual system lord has hundreds of these Ha'tak vessels."

The Shinto Kami nodded, "The average system lords personal escort fleet contains somewhere between thirty and sixty Ha'tak class vessels, depending on the System lords individual power, and position within the hierarchy. For a member of the High Council an escort might consist upwards of ninety ha'tak if one is feeling paranoid, or feels the need to show off," He stated, rarely did a member of the High Council bring such a number publicly into view. It was overkill. Apophis could have brought such a number, but it would have made him a laughingstock amongst the system lords. To take such a massive number of Ha'tak... against a human world without starships it would have been ludicrous. "Though generally if meeting another system lord or rather one you're on good terms with you bring half of that as gesture of trust." Generally of course it your best most powerful and heavily armed ships, but he wasn't going to tell the Tauri that.

"You stated different contingents of System lords." Colonel Chekov raised an eyebrow from what had been explained the Goa'uld were effectively sovereign heads of state though with a very feudal set up. This seemed far more organized than that, which was possible that the Americans didn't know what they were talking about. "I'm assuming you mean there are alliances, and political factions thus."

Raiden nodded acknowledging the question "There are several separate contingents each expunges different values and represent different opinions these contingents are made up of several system lords who are allied and as members vote similarly on matters before the council." He stated, "Beside these contingents there are those who have fleets rivaling those of system lords, typically those who were expelled from the council for one reason or another."

Major Davis attempted to steer things away from issues of goa'uld politics and back to the more pressing military matters, "This is a single Ha'tak class type two." He announced displaying a projection of the startship. It is approximately a kilometer across," It was one of Anubis's Ha'tak that approached the earth. It had only been allowed past because it had not deemed to be a threat to the planet. "It in particularly is currently being manned to defend one of our off world bases, it another type two Ha'tak along with X303 Prometheus were returning to Earth at the time of the Thanagarian invasion, but Raiden's fleet arrived first using their more power hyperdrive. Typically the average system lord flagship is several times this size. The average system lord has midrange light speed capable mid range bombers called Alkesh and small space capable fighters called Death Gliders." He took a minute to bring up another vessel, "This is the Updated Cheops, its an goa'uld carrier employed by the forces of the Goa'uld System lord Heru-ur." The tauri had paid careful attention to development trends amongst the Goa'uld fleet once it became apparent rapid developments were under way. "This is a goa'uld command vessel." Raiden narrowed his eyes, Cronus's flagship. The ship was only about eighty years old now but was still a powerful ship. The ship itself was slightly over three kilometers across, with long heavy stretching arms mounting waves of guns. Against more recent System Lord flagships it would be in danger, but against ha'tak? It would be like pitting a lion against a cheetah.

"These are not the units that were attacking the Thanagarian force." Announced the Frenchman as if he had uncovered some vast plot of deception

"No Mr. Ambassador," Major Davis acknowledged, "Raiden uses Mobile suits which are the large humanoid machines you saw during the invasions, they are significantly superior to the older Death glider and Alkesh as well as a single squadron is significant threat to older Ha'tak-class ships or most ground targets. The Goa'uld as a whole are very much superior in regard to technology, but the mobile suits are a very recent development designed primarily for planetary assault." Major Davis remarked

Raiden would have enjoyed praising the tauri's invovation, how lesser goa'uld were undeserving of such credits, and that even with superior technology Tauri fighters would massacre Death Glider just because of accuracy along. It was true that everyone had made impressive growths in technology. It was also true the Death Glider was meant for hit and run attacks not true dog fighting. "The system lords are presently diversifying. Heru-ur and his allies favor a superior aerofoil target designed to establish air superiority, before his close assault bombers to insure ground supremacy." Those same close assault bombers could also pull anti air rolls, and wolf pack against lone Ha'tak if need be. Heru'ur had been quite busy.

"Uh," The pentagon liason nodded, "well average Goa'uld Strategy is to bombard a hostile planet from orbit and once they've completed the orbital strike to move in for tactical strikes against any remaining ground positions. After that they put they're troops on the ground, each Ha'tak is capable of carrying hundreds if not thousands of troops."

"It was high time you were all briefed on the situation that we're up against." Kinsey injected into the conversation, for which he got glared at by Hammond and Raiden.

"If what your saying is true then the United States has unilaterally placed the entire planet in grave danger."

"Believe me, Mr. Ambassador, I know how you feel. When this was first brought to my attention, I insisted the stargate was two dangerous to remain in operation. Unfortunately, I was overruled." Kinsey again inserted his two cents into the matter.

"With due respect, Senator, the president took your recommendation and it nearly resulted in disaster. It was only because SG-1, who violated your order to shut down the gate, that we managed to survive." Hammond remarked

"Oh, and they have done a great job under your tenure, haven't they general? They have managed to defeat such Goa'uld known as Apophis only to be replaced by another, more dangerous one. Isn't that a fair assessment?"

"Admittedly Anubis does seem to posses technology superior to the," Major Davis paused, "the lesser system lords, but the same can be said of Raiden and several other system lords, but we could possibly seen his return to power among the system lords."

"The point is he has tried to destroy earth twice." Kinsey snarled.

"Enough." Raiden growled, "I do not particularly what the fool here would have you believe. It should be known to you that Earth is under the protection of the System lords, and no attack against this world has gone unavenged." Raiden remarked, "This will be the only warning I give break protocol again and I will bar you from the rest of these discussions." He stated with a glare, and a flare of magical energy from his eyes, causing them to glow. "The High Council rotates responsibility between between several members, at any one time, Sokar, Yu, Cronus, or myself have fleets readily available to defense your world, should the need present itself." Cronus had been the one to move the naquadah asteroid, and Sokar had let the Tauri have Anubis's type two.

"I'm sure you were getting to that." the French Ambassador stated looking pointedly at the US citizens. "Isn't that right Major?"

Major Davis nodded, "About a year ago an asteroid was detected on a collision course with Earth."

"By an asteroid I assume you mean another spaceship." Remarked the Chinese ambassador snidely

"Not this time."

"The asteroid was successfully stopped." Raiden commented, "there was no point in my intervening nor should there have been given your subspace sensors. Cronus dealt with the issue, and Anubis was appropriately chastised for the idiocy of his attempt." Handing the Tauri a naquadah rich rock in the guise of an attack, there were suspicions that Anubis hadn't been trying to endanger the Tauri at all, but who could say.

"Are we expecting another attack? So soon after the Thanagarians?" asked the Frenchman intrigued but trying to stay on the more import matter and trying to ignore the fact the system lord had just had lightning jumping between two of his fingers.

"Not from Anubis, Yu is currently keeping him busy and Yu has made quite great strives in technology since Anubis has been gone," This was of course in no small part due to the fact Yu was old even for a goa'uld and he was allied with Raiden, both being members of the same coalition. "it would be impossible for Anubis to launch any concerted attack against a protected world, without endangering one of his worlds to an attack by Yu, and any attacking fleet would face interception and subsequent destruction." Raiden stated smugly, it was a fact that no doubt Anubis knew well, and the other powerful being didn't have the resources to waste. It was also a fact Anubis didn't have the resources to waste. The way the balance of power was set up pitted three power alliances against one another vying for influence. Cronus and Heru-ur dominated one alliance supported by a few of the lesser system lords. While Anubis's primary ally was Baal, though there were numerous minor independents throwing their lot in hoping to gain more territory. The final alliance was dominated by Yu and Raiden, with Sokar affiliated on the periphery. Truthfully though ultimately allied Sokar had his own goals to accomplish. In this Sokar could be said to be more of amiable neutral than a true ally in most situations.

"The nations represented in this room make up the bulk of this planet's military capacity in the event for the successful defense of the planet would be greatly improved if we worked together. This would require an unprecedented level of military cooperation, as well as a commitment from all of you to maintain absolute secrecy."

"I'm afraid that may be impossible. If there is even a chance of another invasion then we must warn our people so they can prepare." Remarked the Chinese representative glancing at Raiden nervously to which the system lord pointedly ignored. It wasn't as if the man didn't have a point, Earth had been invaded repeatedly so it wasn't like he was underestimating the chance of it happening.

"I don't believe that would be a problem you populous took the revelation of aliens fairly well." Raiden commented unconcerned, it was hardly as if he had any reason to be. Not from the Earth no with Anubis back there were more pressing concerns. Anubis always had had terrible timing. Of course from objective standpoint he was probably reappearing now in attempt to gain as much ground before the system lords could fully reconstitute their fleets. " They will already be suspicious of my forces, which dispatched the Thanagarians." The system lord stated. "Disclosure of the existence of other 'alien' civilizations should not be that problematic."

"With all due respect," The pentagon liason began holding up his hand in a stop gesture,  
Mr. Ambassador, Raiden, we feel that coming forward now so soon after the invasion will result in widespread panic." Major Davis commented. "We feel that as it is, people are just now getting used to the idea that there is an intergalactic war going on between the Thanagarians, and Gordanians, we don't want them to panic knowing there is a war going on right next door."  
Personally Raiden thought it was a bit overly dramatic to call the scuffling over a few minor border words full blow war between the system lords, "As opposed to widespread panic when alien troops are marching in the streets?" remarks the French ambassador. "again?" He added forcefully, "Will we see a repeat of the Thanagarian invasion, where our initial response is completely disarmed, and have to wait for another alien fleet to show up to save the day?"

"The government of China does not believe in keeping secrets from its people." The ambassador stated loudly. Chekov rolled his eyes at the man's antics. "We may have no choice but to release this information."

Of course it didn't particularly matter as Earth was going to most likely continue traipsing about the galaxy and be a nuisance to certain other system lords, which would of course be useful. "Do you what you will I hardly care, if I don't show up someone else would," At present the goa'uld were currently busy with their own affairs, and in Idun the Asgard were likewise occupied with their own war with the replicators. Sithis like all the Daedra and Aedra were however uninvolved in any violent conflict, or at least not involved directly. Raiden like his other half could act discreetly, but he couldn't spare his forces for any in strength deployments not at present. Sithis couldn't deploy his higher level forces without a direct request from a mortal. It was all politics.

Chapter Conclusion

Helltanz's notes:


	11. Chapter 11 Disclosure Part II

Chapter 11

Lightning Fervor

Helltanz's notes: Like I said I divided the meeting up.

- Chapter begin –

"We're talking about a full scale attack from space. I'm afraid people are going to notice ships showing up in orbit and landing troops." The British ambassador stated. As it stood even now the nations of earth were gearing up to take precautions against such an easy conquest, but there were something which just couldn't be defended against. This had been demonstrated by the Thanagarian occupation, who had subverted most of earth's defenses before arriving.

"We're hoping it won't come to that. As you know the stargate program has managed to deal with several threats to the security of this planet without divulging any information to the general public."

"You've gotten lucky and you know it." Retorted Kinsey, "The situation with the Thanagarians could just have easily have ended up being the goa'uld coming to call instead of those stupid birds."

Hammond stood up, "We also have some damn good people. We've given as gotten as good as we've got. For all their advanced technology most Goa'uld have a fatal flaw—arrogance." Growled Hammond in response, before glancing at Raiden. "Their technology is powerful, but it doesn't mean we're impotent, and the system lords have their own issues."

Major Davis nodded, "We've been able to take advantage of the simple fact most of the System Lords don't perceive us a significant threat," As far as things went given what was out there, Anubis's return Earth wasn't particularly high on the system lords interest at present, "as well as the fact several system lords are rather friendly towards Earth. Now as Raiden has pointed out our technology may be inferior it is still effective. Our radar guidance, and missile technology is very much a reliable countermeasure to Alkesh, and Death Gliders"  
"Yes, yes but nothing on earth could defend against one of these Ha'tak." The British ambassador commented, "Its bigger than anything the Thanagarian have, and its fully shielded and seems to be capable of fulfilling the role of aircraft carrier, battleship and troop carrier." He declared gesturing to the slide on the wall.  
"Mr. Ambassador that isn't quite true, we have developed the X-301 a hybrid fighter-interceptor a combination of human technology and Death Gliders provided by the System lord Sokar," A glance was tossed at Raiden, who pretended not to notice. He personally thought the move stupid, and had told Sokar as much, "the project was successful after this success we began developing the FX 302 a craft made entirely of parts produced using our own technology with similar abilities as the X 301."

Sokar was, now that he had been accepted back into the system lords, assisting the Tauri in development, because that was the part he desired in the plan. The 'devil' had a massive industrial base far superior to most of the system lords, and his Ha'tak were some of the most advanced. Still Sokar wasn't big on fighters his entire strategy relied mainly on heavier strike craft to support assaults backed by a capital ship.  
"Do you mean to tell me the United States Air Force is currently flying a fighter-interceptor that is capable of both atmospheric and space flight?" demanded the Chinese Represenative ferociously.

"That's correct." Major Davis remarked, "the FX 302 simply wasn't in numbers high enough to fight off the Thanagarian forces without support from larger ships. As I said both the Prometheus, and our 2 Ha'tak class vessels were-"

"This is unacceptable." He snarled ignoring the major's statement concerning the invasion.

"Mr. Ambassador-."  
"No general the United States has supposedly been operating the Stargate for the benefit of all mankind yet now we find you have been taking advantage of the situation that radically alters the balance of power on this planet."

Raiden's hand sparked drawing the attention. "Wait your damn turn to speak you snivelling monkey. As for the development of technology is has been their right they developed the technology and could have without the use of the stargate. Whatever political nonsense you have going is irrelevant, settle that elsewhere."  
"Wait," He stated, "What? I don't understand how exactly is that possible." Chekov asked in a confused tone, everyone turned to face the system lord.  
"There are several abandoned bases on Earth left behind by Sokar, Ra, and others all with functioning Death Gliders, as well as bases outside the atmosphere, which contain the technology of the Goa'uld or other races. As Thor has told you there are ancient emplacement in the solar system. The United States military could have procured these technologies from." Stated the system lord, "Not to mention Yu or his subordinates probably have installations on Earth, and no doubt other Goa'uld as well have similar facilities." Personally Raiden suspected Yu had facilites somewhere in eastern China but had never cared quite enough to look.

"Any other new technologies we need to be made aware of?"

"Might as well tell them, general. They're going to find out sooner or later." Kinsey commented smugly.

"Ever since we encountered a Goa'uld Ha'tak, we have been working to find a viable countermeasure. At the moment Earth has a flight two Ha'tak and a flight three Ha'tak, the latest model of Ha'tak as well as this." Major Davis brings up a slide displaying the Prometheus class cruiser. "This gentleman is BC(X) 303 Prometheus class, the Prometheus was designed to carry a complement of eight FX-302 fighters, and is one of several planned."  
"I must contact my government immediately." Objected the Chinese ambassador cutting major Davis, Raiden didn't bother to chastise the man for breaking protocol even if he did get annoyed by it. It had become so common he considered just blasting the man into a wall.  
"Mr. Ambassador… we volunteered this information in the spirit of cooperation. We're trying to defend the entire world."  
"Under your leadership."

"We have the experience." Hammond responded. "Our teams have been going through that gate on a daily basis for the past few years and have been making contact with alien civilizations. We have the experts, and we have things already established. If we had wanted to we could have taken this immediately to NATO"

Perhaps that should have been what they should have done, Raiden considered, as it was this was a retarded clusterfuck, if he understood the Tauri term correctly. If Sokar had come he probably would killed one of the ambassadors by this point, or the other politician.

"I'm sorry General, but it may be impossible to achieve an agreement as long as the stargate and any resultant technology remain under the sole control of the United States military."

"What do you suggest?" he indquired

"We could move the gate to a neutral location and create a permanent staff drawn from all five nations." Suggested the French ambassador

"I'm afraid we can't agree to that."

"Well that choice may finally be up to you. Once the rest of the world learns of the Stargate, they may well demand it." The Chinese ambassador commented smugly quite confident the US would have to bow to outside pressure.

"Gentlemen please, perhaps I can offer a compromise. Please?" The senator suggests.

"I sympathize with the Ambassador's position, a device as powerful as the stargate in the hands of a military organization it's a recipe for abuse, despite everyone's best intentions."  
"What are you suggesting?" inquired the Chinese ambassador

"We have a civilian organization known as the NID. Now its mandate has been to keep an eye on top-secret projects like the Stargate Program. I propose we give this organization direct control of the gate effective immediately."  
Hammond looked up watching as Raiden smiled, "You can't be serious."

"I'm completely serious, the NID is the only organization besides the Air Force that has the knowledge, experience and skill to run the Stargate. Under the NID I'm sure we can determine a suitable level of participation for all the great nations represented here at this table."

Raiden stood, and swung his arm in a sweeping motion Kinsey went flying backwards over chair, and into wall with thud, "I'm afraid I can't tell you long I've been waiting to do that since he got here." The System lord remarked"What he proposes is simply put impossible. Whoever they like can demand it all they United States Air Force will retain control of the Stargate as the designated Representative of the United States Armed Forces of the High Council of the System Lords." Commented Raiden continued, personally he wanted to swat all of the clamoring fools but he at least had the. "As the general was attempting to inform you before you interrupted him again in violation of our traditions." over in a heap kinsey grunted gasping for breath." it was our descision particularly according to the treaty that by stipulations of System Lord Cronus and the System Lord Yu Huang Shang Ti that only the military of the United States could be depended upon to responsibly operate the stargate. It was thus decided by the High Council, and ratified in agreement with the Asgard Supreme Council that it must remain in the custody of the United States Air Force. Without my recommendation this will not change. Additionally should the NID attempt to seize control of the Stargate I will have little choice but to deploy ground troops in defense of the Tauri Stargate Facility in accordance with the treaty, which stipulates quite clearly such would be considered a violation of a suzerain state." All things considered, he had in fact considered bringing his ground troops to this meeting. He had quickly discarded such notions, but he had still for a brief moment considered them as an option. No the way the tauri were bickering it might be necessary. The treaty negotiated to admit Earth into the protected planets agreement had also been worded to prevent NID use of the Stargate. The best way to insure that had been to legally insure the gate remained in the control of someone the Asgard, and the goa'uld could depend on to keep it away from the NID.

Hammond sighed. Well that was definitely not the way he had wanted to keep control of the stargate but at least it kept it out of the NID's hands. Strictly speaking as SG 1, and some of the other experts were the only ones who could really read goa'uld no one really had known the exact wording of the treaty.

The senator finally managed to clamber up pushing the chair aside, and off of him. "What you can't be serious." Exclaimed Kinsey. "Thats ridiculous, no one would have agreed to that,"  
"The system lords were quite clear on such matters," Raiden commented, and he found the man's bluster about how no one would agree to such terribly amusing, the tauri had been so happy to be allowed to keep their stargate they'd paid little attentention to stipulations. "The treaty is written as we intended it, the Tauri retain both their stargates as long as they remain in the custody of a sanctioned caretaker, sovereign rights to protect their colonies, and development of their own defenses, with or without help from the System Lords. We are in turn obligated along with the Asgard to protect this world from threats of rogue Goa'uld, as well as other threats, such as the Thanagarians, which I have been informed will not be an issue." All reports indicated the Gordanians were pushing them back, winning on every front or something like that.  
"You don't happen to have ships in orbit at the moment do you?"

"It is within my capacity that I could deploy a limited force of Mobile suits to defend this facility," Not that he couldn't just use his ship to deter any potential aggressors, no one was suicidal enough to try and pick a fight with one of his battleships. "until the arrival of additional warships. Until a treaty review the USAF is the designated custodian of the treaty, under their stargate command, as this is not likely to change, especially given what I have seen, I do not advise to make any plans." As far as things went Yu just happened to like the SGC, and personally, not that he'd ever say it to, well yes he would, but Cronus seemed to have a rather pointed interest in O'neill's scientist. The NID had also proven itself a potential issue, enough that the Asgard had brought them up when the System Lords had brought up the issue of reviewing control of the gate.

"Treaty I am not sure what treaty you are referring to?" Senator Kinsey stated, he knew pretty well what Treaty they were referring to but he had never heard this about this clause being in it. Not he'd actually ever gotten a copy of it. All reports seemed like the treaty conclusion had been pretty informal

"The treaty was signed shortly after Setesh was dispatched. We and the Asgard Council ratified it quite quickly after Sokar was admitted to the High Council." He remarked not bothering to conceal his lack of interest. The treaty had been a piece of needed bureaucracy, it hadn't meant he had to like it. "I am unsure why you would not be aware of it if you are as important as you seem to believe," He finished with a jibe General Hammond should have been aware of what the system lord was talking about Colonel O'Neill most likely still had the documents relating to the treaty somewhere given he had served as Earth's representative during the treaty negotiations. Raiden took a minute to briefly summarize the conditions on which Earth was to be allowed to retain control of both of its Stargates. Which was basically summarized under the guardianship of the United States Air Force, barring an agreement between the Asgard, and High Council changing custodial duties to another tauri organization, and that the Earth would be counted amongst the Protected planets at least until such time Earth was capable of defending itself against hostile threats without the need for the System lords' interference.

As it was even if the human's could convince the System Lords as a whole to agree to even consider renegotiating as well as the Asgard to agree to renegotiate the treaty, well neither side would ever approve of the National Intelligence Division having any form of control over the Stargate. Overall the United States was considered the best choice for guardianship of the Stargate for various factors. Amongst those were their established ties with the Asgard, them being ultimately responsible for killing Ra, and Hathor, amongst others, along with a number of other factors both on and off world.

As it was there was also the fact the National Intelligence Division's personal history spoke for itself. The Asgard had made it abundantly clear they would never allow the stargate to reside in the care of the NID. It was why the Asgard systems were around Stargate and Area 51, to insure both gates were constantly monitored... It would also head off any potential sabotage of the gate, hopefully.

In the wake of the Thanagarian occupation defense spending had increased several fold with serious talks about plans to install anti fighter batteries in major cities to defend against Alien fighters, and developing more mobile rapid reaction military elements to respond to threats. The attack on NORAD, as the military was playing it off officially had already let them increase the prescence around Colorado spring. The USAF had claimed that NORAD had been 'phoning for help' as one pr official had put it to the press. All the public relations people had danced around just who had gotten to phone for help, and for the moment it wasn't that big of an issue, not with everyone picking up. No give it a few weeks when everyone got over the camaraderie and started blaming each other for everything that was when it'd become important.

Raiden hadn't really told them anything at all about what the NID did, "We're talking about something that has always been a very borderline criminal organization, whose true mandate has always been to acquire alien technology at any cost…" major Davis agreed.  
"If the threat posed by the other species in the galaxy is as serious as you say, acquiring technology should be our first priority."

"Tell that to the people of Madrona, sir. The NID stole a weather control device from that planet, causing a complete destabilization of their atmosphere. They would have died had SG-1 hadn't have tracked down the culprits and retrieved the Device. Even after we managed to shut down there base of operations here on earth they continued to steal from an off world base, but they stole from the wrong aliens." Raiden had heard that story, or at least the gist of it, O'neill had backtracked their base and brought an Asgard Battlecruiser down on it. It'd probably been boring to watch from the sidelines given all indication was the NID were little more than thieves, who usually avoided goa'uld planets... admittedly there were reports of tauri on minor border worlds that didn't coincide with SGC teams, but who could say it very well could have been a false flag operation by a rival system lord.

"Granted the NID has employed some questionable methods in the past, but we're all agreed the status quo won't do and I would hesitate to point fingers, General Hammond. Given that you and Jack O'Neill are still in charge of the Stargate program... well I'm questioning your competence," Kinsey turned to address the ambassadors. Raiden had no idea what the idiot was playing at now, the system lords decided the fate of the stargate, no meager Tauri politicking would change the will of the gods."but if you want to look at their records in the company of these fine Gentleman, that's just fine. Each of these reports details an incident in which the operations of Stargate command has brought the planet to the brink of destruction."

Every time anyone activated a stargate it indangered a world, whether yours or the one you were traveling to. Well not everytime, but in this era of turmoil it was close enough. Everytime the NID had used the gate they'd broken the treaty with the system lords, the Goa'uld enforced ex posto facto whenever it suited them.

As it was Anubis would not hesitate to use such incidents to enforce martial law on the planet, and that was strictly speaking a best-case scenario. Any move by Anubis to do such, and strictly speaking Anubis had the legal standing to d o it, just not the resources. If he did try it'd start a fight over the Solar system, or earth specifically. Not that it would really mater. Sokar would rush in, and while Raiden wouldn't rush he knew he'd hardly be able to leave the situation floating between Sokar, and Anubis if it did come to blows.

Truthfully though Raiden saw no point in letting this continue. The human position could only be construed as willfully stupid. He'd looked into all of this carefully, though he personally considered it a waste of his time the movements of Tauri legislation was such a dull thing even he knew that Kinsey had recently moved from appropriations to intelligence oversight, a position which would have the potential to give him direct control over the stargate if it was run by one of the American Intelligence Services. "Is there anything else we need to discuss one of lieutenants has stated he needs to make a report." Raiden commented toying with wrist, "I am prepared to reiterate my support for continuing USAF trusteeship of the gate, so I see no further point in entertaining this particular line of debate."

"There is still the use of the stargate to design military weapons solely belonging to the united states." One of the ambassador's remarked, "I'm quite sure that if it hasn't happened already this technology will be produced by US corporations, for the regular armed forces."

Raiden shrugged dismissively, such was beneath him, "That matter is beneath the notice of the System Lords. Any technological development that results is an internal Tauri issue. I would suggest if you really want to participate in the Stargate Program," He stated, ultimately that particular issue didn't concern him, "you could ask the American's if you can have your own Stargate team, as to military research you once again ask the American's to joint finance research projects like the North Atlantic countries do for Jet Fighters, you contribute monetary assets and Scientists to assist in research and design your own units. Perhaps we could meet again in a week to finalize this discussion. I believe that's all we'll be able to do for now."

"Yes that would potentially be a very good, The French ambassador nodded, "We all need to consult with all our individual governments before such a decision can be reached."

"Then we are adjourned." The system lord beamed back aboard his orbiting flagship.

The British ambassador quirked an eyebrow "Does he always do that?" he asked looking the major

The pentagon liason nodded, "Unfortunately, yes. It seems to be their defacto way of getting in somewhere."

"a bit like Star Trek then?" The ambassador commented, Chekov snorted. "Well then lads I should be off, a lot to discuss with Her Majesty's government, and all." Indeed it seemed like all of them would taking back more than they'd originally expected.

Chapter conclusion


	12. Chapter 12 Interlude I

Chapter 12

Lightning Fervor

Helltanz's notes: The war with anubis is the major galactic plotline, while the smaller earth plots

- Chapter begin –

How the Tauri ever managed to get anything done with their useless and corrupt form of self government was a wonder to the Shinto Kami, not that it particularly mattered since eventually the Tauri would return to the fold and put these silly notions of democracy and self rule behind them. Mortals existed to be ruled by their betters, each layer of society owed its well being to the rungs above it this was just the way of the universe. "That was annoying." He commented in irritation. "So what is this important thing you had to summon me for a meeting ahead of our usual monthly gathering?"  
It would take years for humanity to properly reverse engineer the technology they had acquired from the Thanagarians would take years, and time of course to properly integrate and by that time well Raiden's plan would have moved forward. It would probably be a waste anyway, well save perhaps the Thanagarians gravity lift system, and even that if Raiden was correctly informed depended on nth methal's unique properties.

Humans never had a taste for proper governance or preparations. It was always immediate gain for them. Humans would in the short term take precautions in the event of another invasion, but eventually they would loosen their guard they always did. They'd probably even be invaded again sometime next year, and then they'd complain again. Bah.

Already certain elements of the human population were complaining about the growth in military spending, and the military presence in space, and the deployment of the military assets around cities. When no attack came in the immediate future humanity would grow complacent and would push for steps to be taken to lower the alert level, which would suit the system lord's plans quite well. Let them whine.

The ninja bowed, "Please you may wish to sit down," Saki remarked, "as I doubt very much that you will like this report."

Raiden personally doubted it could be any less unlikable than dealing with the Tauri's politicians, still he took the offered seat. If the master of the Foot ninja didn't think this was good news then it was probably at least as bad as Talpa's recent setback. Talpa's efforts in Japan were a minor complication, but for him to be beaten by adolescents who hadn't mastered the magic armors they wore and a motley crew of heroes was a bit of a nuisance. Talpa had promised to quickly rush to look into such to remedy his situation, and Raiden had left him too such.

Saki exhaled, before calling in his other guest. The other man Raiden recognized from the stirring of memory, this was one of Sithis's men, one of his retainers on this miserable continent. "We have been made aware there is a growing population of Advanced humans on this world," Announced the master of the Foot clan. "They have thus far managed to remain hidden from the eyes of the mainstream population." Saki paused, "Considering the threat posed by certain other races… it has been the suggestion of the Black Hand that in our mutual interests a rotating cycle of observation should be undertaken." The ninja stated hands clasped. He frowned, normally advanced humans were a good thing but in this case, Sithis rarely took interest, which meant he either hadn't been officially told or... Raiden didn't want to consider the latter. Then there were other concerns the Shinso were devious creatures, prone to selecting strong familiars for their queens. Without the ability to operate with true freedome on this world Master, our exchange of information on these hok'tar have located several major gatherings one such facility in a nearby town of Bayville. Please understand," the Shredder stated before he handed over a folder containing pictures of the Xavier Institute for Gifted Youngsters."that this school is one with multiple instances of what is Military grade technology, by the standards of the Tauri" Shredder stated, "Raiden-sama. Additionally, there is something else you will be displeased to learn;" This came from the Brotherhood's envoy, of this Raiden was sure, "The United States Army has cloned a Kryptonian.," Again the ninja bowed, Oroku Saki's zaibatsu had no real ties to the military. It was one of those American things. "According to intelligence this is the location one of the clones training facilities. Please understand I brought this to your attention immediately."

A flash of dark energy passed the system lord's eyes, there was a stirring notion of Sithis's consciousness, but for Raiden it was just a minor note. He was glad to at least know about these developments "This day has begun to grate on my nerves." He murmured as he reached out to start flip through the folder's pictures and reports.

The Shinso were an 'old enemy', well about twelve hundred years so not really that old, but the threat they posed to humans was rather grave. Late in the seven hundreds according to the Tauri calendar Sokar had returned to Earth, no one had particularly cared back then. However when Sokar had risen again, during the Terrors, and the great war, Sokar had brought countless monstrosities with him against the System Lords. It was that war why Raiden had so few Unas in his service. The Shinso had been one of many monsters rallied under Sokar's banner.

The Kryptonians welll that was another issue. A worry to be sure. The real concern was the military cloning such a creature. Even so this group of Hok'tar were a potential asset, even if their existence was also a potential trouble, should the Shinso manage to interfere with the populous of advanced humans.

Quitely Oroku Saki moved straightening his back, "Should I prepare a strike team, my lord?" The Shredder inquired.

Unlike Talpa the master of the Foot clan's forces were spread out. The careful dispersion was usually an asset. As it stood the Foot clan's elite would be able to counter a Kryptonian with preparation. It was so simply because they would have the proper equipment, but Raiden didn't wish to tip his hand just quite yet. No the Justice League were apparently already on alert.

The system lord shook his head, "No," He remarked, though dealing with this clone would do well to remind the Tauri of their place before their gods now was not the time for pressing reckless forward. "thank you for offering Saki-kun," Raiden responded, "However we must consider the situation, and the balance of society. In contemplating such harmonies we find that for now the balance is upset, and move harms everyone. We will endure. Keep watch for now." The System lord ordered,

"Consider your already scheduled obligations first, before thinking to add additional burdens. Those existing burdens may yet produce some results." Outside of espionage work on Earth, and development there was one major purpose which the Foot clan was assigned. It had been Saki's responsibility to locate the last of the Umtrom, the truth was their continued existence was simply a variable that did not need to exist.

-scene break-

Truthfully for the Justice League no body had really been prepared for any of this. It'd really lead to, the Thanagarian invasion and the subsequent discussions with everyone, some serious considerations. In truth no one really knew how to react to these invasions, even with their relatively low loss of life there was however still rebuilding that needed to be done. For the League itself though everyone had things to explain.

Batman's contingency had set up its own problems, but the biggest issue had been Hawkgirl. That wasn't to say there weren't other issues.

No according to the Green Lantern corp the violent expulsion of the Thanagarian fleet had severely weakened the Thanagarians. This coupled with a rather sudden assault by the Gordananians, which seemed oddly timed, had pushed the Thanagarians back on the defensive. It didn't look good.

Then there was Earth. Forcing Hro to surrender hadn't meant much, but it had saved some lives. The 'alien back up' earth had gotten had been to focused on landing on Earth than really dedicated to destroying the Thanagarian fleet, sure they'd been killing ships but as soon as they had hit orbit most of their ships had started descending. Most of those ships had of course been escort vessels. So once everything was over both the alien fleets had left leaving everyone with a lot of questions, and few answers.

It'd been the Monday after that people had started going back to work. Picking up, and starting back as it were that the first calls had rang in. Everyone had known the justice league had had the Watchtower taken from them. So Batman had proposed the expansion of the league, Green Lantern had said he wasn't the only Green Lantern from Earth. That'd been where they'd first started looking.

At the same time they'd announce that other people had started calling. Government people. There had been a lot of demands for the proprietary technology involved in the Javelin 7 that the Justice League. It hadn't helped that Bruce had constructed a new model, simply renamed the Javelin, which was a newer superior model. National governments didn't like being told no, they couldn't have something. Of course at the same time the United States was also stepping up its own government development programs, which meant it had been all hands on deck for major US corporations, and that had suddenly started eating up a lot of Bruce's time.

Jonn had stepped up to handle coordination of new recruits into the League, this had mainly let Batman handle Wayne things. Superman, and Green Lantern handled a lot of the major missions on Earth, with Wonder Woman joining in when she wasn't leading the new recruits on other missions. Flash however had taken up his responsibility to his home city full time now that the league was expanding, though he was still a part of the 'council' that had been formed of original members.

"So what are we here for this week?" Flash asked, "I mean lets face it there is only so much that can be done for the New Watchtower to better protect the planet."

Batman nodded, construction was already underway, and the Watchtower II, and its annexes would be finished within the year. "The new station is not the immediate concern, Wayne Industries was recently approached by a Government Organization known as the Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Directorate, their mandate is intended as a government analogue to the Justice League." It'd also been precisely what Batman had been warning about. They're negotiating with our lawyers over a string of public facilities up and down the east coast." Ostensibly it was because Gotham, and Wayne Industries were search major factors. Gotham was a major city, and Wayne Industries was one of the largest US corporations. Obstensibly SHIELD was expanding because of the Invasion, but the Justice League expansion was probably a factor as well

-scene break-

Sirius had had an interesting last few years. The wizarding world hadn't really noticed the whole war of the worlds drama that had gone down over a year ago. Only the muggleborns had been in the loop, it'd been the muggleborns and the half bloods who had gotten stirred up about it. Not that it'd really meant much for the wizarding world, especially England.

Dumbledore still was relatively iffy about this whole ancient gods of light and dark thing, and he was hardly the only one. Mad Eye's belief in it seemed to at least convince some of the order to give it a chance especially with everything that had been happening. Still the Order wasn't being terribly proactive in the fight against Voldemort's second rise, not that there was a whole lot to do truthfully.

Voldemort had started laying a little lower after some of his new Death Eaters had gotten their ass handed to them by some group of French wizard. It'd been the main thing that had taken the wind out of the Dark Lord's sails. Snape had said the Dark Lord had been looking into it.

Everyone had different ideas of what to do, but nobody wanted rock the boat. That was just the way the order was, and Sirius just hadn't been willing to put up with that. Dumbledore hadn't liked it but Sirius had rotted in Azkaban for nearly twenty years, so at the first opportunity he'd bolted for it. The headmaster had been all about wanting Sirius to sit around cooped up in his parent's old house so they could use it for a headquarters and twiddle their thumbs, but Sirius had left soon as he'd been able to. So here he was sipping what passed for coffee in one of the American's major metropolises, not the Metropolis, but it was big enough for Sirius's tastes. He'd been looking for a place to lay low, it wasn't like he was on the run per se, well from pretty much everyone in England yeah, but not anywhere else. The funny thing was for all the noise the ministry made, they weren't looking that hard outside England just a couple notices here and there. It was suspicious but nothing too major. It was the order that he was set on dodging, they didn't seem to get the hint he didn't want to join back up, so here he was. He'd heard there was a town further west, Dakota or something, where the Statute of Secrecy supposedly wasn't in effect. Judging from the news broadcasts that looked to be the case, still no sign of the company that Dumbledore had gone too years ago, actually that was the suspicious thing.

Sirius thumbed through the magazine. Picking up the pieces after the bird people had come was what everyone was doing. Sirius could hardly believe people existed on other planets. Then again Moody had said it before this or the attack of those huge walkers. Sirius traced the emblem emblazoned on the side of the ship that was pictured in the map, it made since where this 'Raiden' was if he wasn't on earth.

-scene break-

Phobos deep within his castle was brooding, it was something he spent a great deal of. The prince didn't take well to being foiled, or told he couldn't do something, so having a collection of Dark Brotherhood, to whom were pledged the god he was a ward of, tell him he could not meddle in a city on earth irked him. Cedric, his ever faithful adviser, had cautioned restraint.

In truth he had seen an opportunity in the assault by these 'Thanagarians' to get people on Earth to look around, but the Dark Brotherhood had quickly arrived to deny him access to the city the portal was open in. It had been a mystery to Phobos, but while Raiden launched his brazen petty vengeance on the Thanagarian fleets, taking cities by force of arms, Sithis had been more quiet about it.

His new guest promptly explained it, "The Dread Father's orders were clear," The Speaker commented, he was a member of Sithis's for the entire North American continent, thus within the brotherhood of no small position. "The city is not to be meddled in."

In this however he was also not of any particular concern to Phobos. the man was beneath him in the Prince's opinion, based solely on the fact that the Brotherhood divided planets into continent sized administration groups, and the Dark Brotherhood stretched operations across millions of worlds. That was a great deal of people. "I-"  
On the other hand arguing with the six and a half foot tall scary black human was probably not the best idea. Phobos himself was not short by any means but the Speaker was a good head taller, "Sithis's will boy, I've served for a hundred forty years since he broke my chains. That city isn't for you to poke around in."

In raw magic Phobos new he had more, he knew it on the other... "I want access to the Earth! It is my right to look for my sister, there is a portal in that city." He shouted.

Elijiah considered breaking the blonde prince's nose, boy talked to much. "And? What about that Portal? There are other portals, you find them, use them, done told you the city ain't for you to poke around in. You don't poke around, you and I ain't going to have problems," The Speaker turned and stepped through the rippling gateway of magic his necklace opened for him. The lair of the Dark Brotherhood in the city was spacious it was a rather large library complex down on south street with a fallout bunker built underneath it.

Inside the stronghold underground was the shrine to the both the Mother, and Sithis himself, but there were also the assortment of weapons, and magic tools around it. It was a sight. More impressive however was the seven seven brotherhood members who happened to be milling about the antechamber at this particular time. Didn't matter if the boy was a prince, and all magical and such, you didn't defy the god of death's edicts lightly.

His Silencer nodded, "We've prepared to secure the portal, we're merely waiting for confirmation."  
"Once we do it the Council on Kandrahkar will know something in this city can seal those portals." That was the issue, that was why they hadn't done it immediately. When the listener got back to him, that'd be when they'd do it one way or another. "What else?" He wanted to know whether they had anything else.

The Silencer nodded, "Well we have a collection of reports regarding a number of potential problems,"  
"Oh and what would those be?" Elijah drawled, "Cops, or crooks, or just nosy people in general?"  
"HYDRA, and SHIELD."  
Elijah cursed he hated this interdepartmental bullshit. Fucking HYDRA needed to deal with its own damn problems and leave them to their own jobs.

-Chapter conclusion-

Helltanz's notes:


	13. Chapter 13 Interlude II

Chapter 13

Lightning Fervor

Helltanz's notes:

-Chapter begin -

For Sithis the day comprised great amounts of time spent on petty, even ultimately meaningless bureaucratic work. It'd been precisely why he'd smacked Phobos. He knew precisely about the portal, and the city, and the boy didn't need to be bothering in his little experiment.

He had more pressing things. The city was unimportant for the moment. The Thanagarian Invasion had been a wonderful opportunity. True he'd been well aware that Thanagarians had hoped to create the hyperspace bypass to attack the Gordanian homeworld, but it hadn't been anything particularly interesting. The Thanagarians had always been miserable insects on the galactic scale, a single of his ships would have brought them to their knees. Not that he'd ever waste such, it wasn't an option not with the agreement with the Aedra still in place, or a suitable invitation.

"Have we taken full account of it?" Sithis queried. The Dread Father rarely wanted for something, he'd grown boring of quantitative expansion a million years past, and even a desire for quality had since been the dominant focus. Petty squabbling for resources was irrelevant to either Aedra, or Daedra, even souls were a trivial concern.

No what Sithis was asking about was just how bothersome other things had become, such troublesome meddlers. He could track his brother's meddlings, no that wasn't an issue it was the countless other meddlings in play.

Azura nodded, "its nothing that cannot be dealt with." The other Daedric Lord responded, there was a conclave between the Aedra and Daedra rapidly approaching, which occupied the bulk of the attention of all of them, both Aedra, and Daedra. Such gatherings were infrequent and demanded the attention of the Aedra, and Daedra.

"Valar is the designated world?" Sithis confirmed examining the vast expanse of area before him, it was prime choice as far as Sithis was concerned. He flicked his fingers across the input. The crystals glowed presenting the geoscape of the planet, long snow covered mountains crafted some million plus years before the final war in heaven. He remembered the little world, during the third war in heaven Stendarr had mounted sterling defense of the world, ultimately futile of course the world was just impractically placed to truly defend back then given its location. Nowadays the world was recovering nicely all green forests and blue seas, even a thriving animal population. All lower level, Stendarr could have chose to reseed a higher lifeform population, but thus far hadn't.

Sithis occasionally would sit back and reminisce about times long ago, back during the age of dreams. Now things were so much more occupied, there existed a hierarchy far below the Aedra and Daedra. It dealt exclusively about their retainers. The mewling of pathetic wizards was beneath him it was why the Black Hands congregated to discuss and oversee minor things.

Azura turned, "Will it be a problem?" She queried,  
"No, Valar is unimportant for the questions that need to be pressed of my brother," Sithis answered.

The other Daedra nodded, "You know they'll try to side track this with discussions about the issue of Kandrakhar." Which was ultimately one of the few issues that Aedra and Daedra could agree to discuss, "Or earth's recent events," Or the opposition could go the opposite direction and start and argument which would break the meeting.

-scene break-

As far as England went, it'd been quiet, well it had been if you stuck to Wizarding Britain, for places like London well people were still picking up after the Thanagarians had left... and that whole sixty giant mecha landing in old town.

"Has there been any word from Sirius?" It was a pointless question, but it always got asked anyway at or around the start of these meetings. At the expected negative response, plus a snide remark from Snape, they moved on to the usual lamentations. "is there any thing to report?"  
Bill pressed a newspaper along the table, a muggle newspaper called the Daily Planet, "Raiden showed up recently major event, apparently these people called the Thanagarians invaded Earth," Everyone kind of sat a little straighter, "big battle with flying ships and flying armor was what all those lights were last month," There were some blustering denials from the more traditionals, until a couple of the muggleborns, and half bloods spoke up, that yeah something had happened. "The Thanagarians well we're," by that he meant Gringotts, "we will be going back to look at some things now that we have a translation for the writing on the ruins, but I don't really expect it will help us too much." Basically what Bill was saying was he'd be gone for a couple weeks.

The truth was for wizard curse breaking the last few years had been major for cursebreaking, and archeology in the wizarding world. Deciphering Ra's temple had been a major work, and the Thanagarian translations would be a whole other series of developments. Not that he expected the order to understand it, even if Dumbledore did ask to be kept in the loop for anything that might be useful.

The next topic as usual was the pester Severus for information game. Snape was worse than useless, ever since the Dark Lord's defeat in France he'd done little major. It'd primarily been small Death Eater raids, and prods while the Dark Lord brooded. It wasn't even so much that Voldemort was sulking it was that the man in France was supposed to be dead, supposed to have died back in the 40s during Grindelwald's regime... so there was actually some legitimacy to Voldemort sitting back and scratching his head.

"Now then," Dumbledore called out, "I know we haven't made a whole lot of progress in recent months, but this event Bill has brought up In the muggle world, well it might be just the insight we need,"

For Bill trying to explain this was not easy. Trying to explain it while Hermione Granger butted in every five minutes with some miscellaneous detail did not help. The muggleborn clearly at least was still familiar with the muggle world. The real benefit to her interjecting was explaining about the whole muggle government, and military thing, as well as the Justice League. Dumbledore had been particularly intrigued by the latter item, wizards just didn't particularly care about things like muggle armies. Everyone liked to pretend those things weren't an issues, or that they just didn't exist.

-scene break-

Tokyo hadn't been left unscathed by the Thanagarians either, though the population had been all too quick to rush out to take pictures when the giant robots had show up to fight the aliens, well the Thanagarians. That wasn't actually why Talpa was sulking, his warlords, his warlords had rushed off to attack the aliens. That in itself would not at all have bothered him, it was that they had teamed up with those miserable ronin to fight the invaders. From an objective perspective he understood that in some cases one had to put aside ones differences to accomplish a necessary task, but it did little to mediate his irritation.

The failure to take control in his failed bid recently had also left him in a more vulnerable position, or so he saw it anyway. In truth he was imagining such a situation, Raiden appreciated Talpa far too much for the system lord to replace him, regardless of how stupid the mistake had been on Earth, especially in light of the Thanagarian Assault. That didn't matter to Talpa, what mattered was his increasing concern over the perceived effectiveness of the Foot, and their much more open public relations campaigning.

If Talpa still had the ability to wrench his hair out, or rather the lack of control, he would have. She was teaching mortals who had no existing ties with the empire, you didn't do that, it just wasn't done. It just wasn't something one did even in these situations. Then again Talpa was old fashioned, and this was new strategy implemented by Oroku Saki's designated heir as part of a new line of strategies for the modern era.

Today though, "Report," He rumbled, Raiden had warned that all this was too coincidental something was working, had to be, to organize these repeated consecutive invasions of this world. Earth was changing. "Tell me of the mortals?"

"The Armor bearers have retreated to -"  
Talpa snorted, "I do not care about the ronin at the moment," He snapped irritably, "Tell me of the mortal world. What have they done so far?" He already knew about the ronin, and how they'd split up to individual cities in Japan to help with resistance against the Thanagarian invaders. No Talpa's concerns lay with the mortal authorities.

"At present they have mobilized those civil institutions to deal with the aftermath of the damage of the Thanagarians," The warlord paused, "My lord, I must urge you the ties between Hong Kong, and the Government of Japan is being focused around the bearer of the armor of Earth, given his family's personal wealth I should think."

Talpa waved him off, "I merely wish you to observe," The Justice League, the Foot, and every other faction concerned him. As it was changing was very hard, for him at least, and the modern world was busy, "What about the European Wizards." It was true that in North America Oroku Saki had the privilege of addressing wizarding concerns, Talpa had gained the privilege of watching for the meddling and nosy foreigners everywhere else. Raiden had great faith in Talpa's abilities after all.

The warlord paused, and closed his mouth, "Well..."

-scene break-

For the Justice League J'onn, John, Bruce, Clark, and Dianna were the ones in charge, and everyone pretty much knew it. Not that it really mattered, the new Watchtower II facility that was under construction would house an entire league of superheroes as well as support staff, for now though the original Watchtower was where most were staying. It had already been established that both the new Watchtower, and original Watchtower would both operate as a part of the expanded league.

Batman recognized that given all the potential dangers out there that, with advice from John Stewart, that more than one watchtower system might be best. There were countless alien empires out there, and while the Thanagarians had been driven off people just weren't comfortable.

That was why they were expanding the league. "I don't think we should consider the admission of children into the league,"

"Then what about Captain Marvel?" There were a few minutes of discussion that largely revolved around Marvel's wisdom of Solomon trait, before the topic shifted once again to the matter of acceptable age for membership. It was a tricky issue, especially given the acceptance of Supergirl into the league, and then Stargirl. Then came the offer of who else to invite once no clear option could be determined.

"We could extend invitations to other heroes to shore up Europe's defenses, perhaps Lionheart?" Diana, it would be nice to expand the League's female membership as well, there was a minor bit of discussion.

Bruce frowned, "I'm concerned with some of her methods, but she'd still be a valuable method, if we're admitted Black Canary and Huntress, I'll vote to admit Lionheart." It was an easy enough vote, just as Doctor Strange, and Doctor Fate had been both approved to help shore up the League's magic defense.  
"What about Asia, if we're going to cover the entire planet-"

"Well there are the heroes who helped during the Thanagarian invasion."  
Which brought them back to the age issue, "Half of them are children." Superman protested, "Even with their armors I'm concerned this might be too much for them."  
"They're super girls age, and they've been active for more than a year, so they know what they're doing," Green Lantern interjected, "Lets face facts we need the back up, and there are a number of people we could approach, but definitely these guys."

Batman's frown was back, "Again I'm concerned about their willingness to use lethal force, yes they have demonstrated restraint, so I will vote for trial membership, but I am voicing my concern."

"Good, well then we'll have to make contact," Diana concluded, "If the issue of age is going to be an issue, which I don't think it should be, then perhaps we should reconsider the backing of the creation of junior superhero teams." It'd been a discussion that'd come up some weeks previous about moving sidekicks together in order to form teams that could watch each others backs when their mentors just weren't able to be there. The idea being the mentors being caught up in league missions.

-scene break-

For Cronus the last few years had been one immense pain in the gonach after the other, first Yu had gotten the upper hand in their little border skirmish, and then Ra had gotten himself killed, after that things had deteriorated quickly. On the plus side his fleet was growing nicely with his alliance with Heru-ur secured.

Ra's declared heir had even secured the peace with Yu Huang Shang Ti, and Raiden, and with the peace with Sokar established there was at least some balance of powers between the system lords, even with Anubis's return. It was fortunate both monsters, Sokar, and Anubis, loathed each other otherwise their combined might would surely threaten the whole of the Goa'uld. No as it was Anubis, and Sokar were both building up their fleets for an inevitable war between each other. A wat that would admittedly envelope everyone, but not this year.

The months were dragging tediously by, but for the now the Tauri were keeping the motley minor system lords occupied, which meant the great lords of the goa'uld those truly worthy of the title of System Lord, were set to continue their great game. There was at least a semblance of peace in the galaxy. It would not last, that Cronus knew well, war was coming. Sooner or later a true war would come, otherwise Raiden would have probably have rushed ahead to crush Morrigan, and batter Mac Liir into submission. Cronus had readily recognized that the Storm God's obsession had been getting out of hand, not that Cronus minded his distraction as it kept Raiden from poaching on Cronus's domain.

Still there were three remaining lords that were actually on Cronus's mind, Olokun, Kali, and Bastet. Any alliance with Kali and Bastet would be foolish, Heru-ur would never agree to such. Kali had been an enemy of both Heru-ur and Ra in recent centuries, and Heru-ur would hardly forget such, and the Avenger disliked Bastet for personal reasons.

Olokun though, well they both, he and Cronus, bordered Yu's expansive domain, truthfully an alliance in these trying times would be practical.

Heru'ur nodded, "Olokun is good choice, Moloc is a weak fool, as is Ares, whom we shall crush soon."  
That was something Cronus was looking forward too. Artemis had fled to Raiden for protection after Zeus's last uprising had been crushed, and with Zeus's most recent escape from custody it was best to crush Ares before he could rush to aid his father, against Cronus. Heru'ur was all too willing to help, so long as he was appropriately compensated for his time. Heru'ur also needed the time to properly test the news weapons they would use and a weaker system lord like Ares was an ideal target.

It mattered little if Svaarog attempted to aid his ally, if so it would present a slightly greater challenge, but given that Svaarog had other concerns... like Sokar, it was unlikely. As it stood Sokar had smashed a half dozen worlds along Svaarog's border, and other system lords sensed weakness, well Bastet and Kali did. Most likely by the end of the year Svaarog, like Ares would be defeated, and the System Lords would be just that much more consolidated. The future was grand, but terrible. The galaxy would tremble.

Cronus, and Heru'ur overlooked their growing joint fleets.

– Chapter Conclusion-

Helltanz's notes:


	14. Chapter 14 Clones, and Turtles

Chapter 14

Lightning Fervor

Helltanz's notes:

-Chapter begin-

Nuvo-Gen Corporation headquarters was located in Metropolis, which strictly speaking struck him him as retarded given both the Luthor boy, and the Kryptonian's presence here. Then again the humans on this world tended to do stupid things for inane reasons, for now though he'd sit back and watch the little side show. As it was it was amusing to watch rather than meddle, he'd give it a few minutes, then intervene...

Galatea delivered a fierce cross punch to Supergirl, from whom she had been cloned from genetic material, one Kara Zor-El, through one of the hard light buildings. The holograms might have lacked true physical structure of concrete and steel, but it still hurt. Kara retaliated by striking her clone with a light post, well a holographic light post, but it was still solid. Over the next few moment the fight continued with kicks and punches being exchanged between the two and, some actually real, cars being blown up. The fight between the two only ceased when a purple discoloration of air appeared distorting space as a rift formed.

He had grown tired of watching, the distortion gave way fully shifting into the avatar of of Sithis. The Kryptonians attempt to blast with her heat vision, the key word being attempted as the blast was harmlessly dissipated against his palm. The warmth tickled slightly against cold hands. "That won't work on me girl, I'm immortal such attacks won't fell one such as me." Sithis remarked mildly amused by the attempt, and then his smile turned cold, well colder than it had been. This could be the detective's ordeal let him understand a father's troubles. His body shifted further embracing the Daedric form. This transformation caused his bones to crack, and thicken, and to become more defined underneath his skin and for his fingernails to become sharp talons. Galatea threw a punch at the dark god who with trivial ease blocked it. With the same laughable ease he retaliated. Truthfully this was an unfair competition a thousands could not prepare one for this and his claws saturated with magic cut deep in flesh. Sithis didn't bother with any fancy kicks, a simple toss carved a long furrow into the ground of this 'training' room.

"Damn you." Galatea muttered all the while she stumbled to get up and continue the vain and hopeless fight against the dark entity who wizards thought to be their savior from Voldemort.

He chuckled, "All your cunning strategies, all the tricks you try are all merely child's play." He remarked mockingly before unleashing a blast of dark tinted lightning, which electrocuted the Kryptonian. The discharge of magic energy causing her extreme pain, it was pain, which would make the Cruciatias curse, look like a pin prick. He desired submission, a yield, or unconscious but this needed to end with a clear defeat for the whelp or it would be pointless.

"You're killing her." Supergirl objected flying up to beside the dark god.

"Hardly, yet I have done worse." He remarked off hand as if the matter was no particular issue.

A voice spoke up, interjecting "Yeah you have." The Green Lantern John Stewart leveled his ring and unleashed a blast at the physical manifestation of the dark god;s back. What should have been enough to at least stagger superman cascaded harmlessly around the glowing mass of amber light.

"That was a mistake John Stewart." His fingernails, more talons now, to be extended and sliced through the muscles in Green Lantern's ring arm. "Come humans I must converse with the detective. I have other agendas"

John Stewart glowered, the Green Lantern was will power incarnate, he had no intention to back down, and it was brave, "Oh yeah. Is that so?" He challenged in a brave, if foolish, attempt at defiance to the dark god.

"It is so. Do you want me to mangle your other arm?" He inquired in a tone that would have been more suited to asking about the weather. Sithis quirked his head slightly, and noted with some mild annoyance they, whether security personnel or scientists of the facility, had activated the facility's self destruct system. He relayed this merely because he had no interest in needlessly complicating his agenda.

Oliver Queen shook his head wondering exactly what the hell was going on, and still not quite sure if this Justice League business was all that wise. "Uh who are you?" Green Arrow asked.

"Sithis," The emerald eyed figured remarked, "To simply begin to give my identity would be to understand that I am the god which is the void, all darkness, and the cold of space is but an aspect of me. I am the god of death, and father to all."

"His followers are notorious for massacring entire planets." Green Lantern added continuing to attempt to glare holes in the deities back.

"I have not had a need for such brutish tactics since we deigned to intervene in the war between the new gods," The daedric lord remarked, "I much prefer that a quiet death strikes in the night to put an end to foolishness, such is as it must be done."

"Right." He muttered sarcastically, "Lets just say I don't believe you."

"That would be your problem, John Stewart." Came the response to the retort, he hardly cared.

– scene break-

The new watchtower was impressive as far as Earth Engineering feats went, insignificant from the perspective of one of the ancient races, but cute in its attempt. He paid a spare bit of polite courtesy to the Martian, a nod never harmed anyone. Truthfully Malacath had resented the Green Martians and their issue with the whites, though Sithis didn't particularly care. The greens had served the Aedra once upon a time, and then as both had withdrawn, and the Martians had regressed, well things had played out much as one would suspect.

J'onn J'ozz surveyed the group, and all things considered they looked quite the worse for wear all of the leagers, even Green Arrow who was easily the best off of the lot. "Should I alert the medical facility?" Inquired the Mars native in a concerned tone.

"It would be unnecessary the real reason for her unconsciousness is my poison spell she will remain unconscious for another few minutes," He remarked completely ignoring the injuries to Green Lantern, Supergirl's own bruises, or Green Arrow's battered ribs. "I should however ask you to call the detective."

The Martian Manhunter chose not to push the issue, "He is down the hall I believe that he is currently speaking with Diana." He responded before moving over to the former marine. "The bleeding is minimal Jon," Which strictly speaking it shouldn't have, not the way the cuts were, not this deep.

The green lantern ignored the querry, "Your just letting him walk around the Watchtower?" John Stewart demanded ignoring his arm."  
"He has no hostile intentions," He stated, or at least none I can discern, was left out from the statement. "and I doubt we could stop him." Responded the Martian J'onn. "Your injuries as a group seem the more pressing issue,"

Appropriately as the dark god made his way into the mess hall of the greatly expanded Watchtower II it became deathly quiet. In a sense this amused him, "It appears my reputation precede me." Sithis remarked. "I do hate to interrupt your conversation, however I should think that this should not take long."

"What exactly do you want exactly Sithis?" It was not a question to pose lightly, but Bruce pressed it anyway, as he would.  
Sithis snorted, nostrils flaring amused at the blodness, the detective was one of the reasons he was able to act freely in this region of space, well sort of freely there were limits of course. Limits that if he crossed his kin would contest, and complain, the summit at Valar had reached decisions, but nothing truly concrete, but then nothing truly was permanent. Always fluid. "I do like the new design, clearly a maturation. The cannon is a nice touch, but to the point. I have your task; one you shouldn't have any problem completing and it serves a greater purpose even beyond my own machinations, its more for your public façade, it might even help your points with the public."

"What's with the girl?"

He tilted his head and smirked, something the 'Dark Knight of Gotham' did not like in the slightest. "You will be providing guidance to adolescents with superpowers. You can start with this one." After he finished his fingers began to glow a transparent white. He reached out and tapped Batman on the side of the head. "I will leave several magical texts next to your aspirin, good night detective."

Batman collapsed into a heap on the mess hall floor. Wonder Woman cracked her knuckles, as the other members of the Justice League scrambled to get up.

"I'm very surprised either of your parents let you walk around like that." He murmured turning his attention to Hades's daughter, though he imagined it might have been easier to fight in than a dress.

"What did you do to Batman?" demands the Amazonian princess ignoring his previous statement entirely.

His nostrils flared again, Sithis was rarely cruel unnecessarily, there were times yes where a father had no choice, but this was not one of them. "Nothing serious to his health he will be fine, headaches will be the only side affect. If you see your father again before I do give him my regards," Sithis paused before adding, "the same for your mother of course." He'd considered the little project pointless, the small protectorate worthless to his needs, given he'd need to defend it from other interested parties drawn by his interests. "Tell the Detective I will be by later to give the additional instructions. Watch over this one." He passed off Galatea to the Amazonian. "I must leave now."

As far as things went matters between the gods were complicated especially since the Daedra and Aedra weren't supposed to interfere without 'provocation' or an invitation to do so.

Bruce Wayne could be very useful, but the detective always made sure to pay his debts off quickly, which was decidedly troublesome. Even so if he could recruit the 'Dark Knight' it would be a boon, and given the Amazonian's interest well that was just a very large potential boon in and of itself.

In any event if he dallied any longer one of the Aedra would probably decide to butt in to his affairs, which would be decidedly bothersome. Valar had been so annoyingly indecisive in deciding things..

-scene break-

Here he was again on the Top Floor of the Foot Ninja headquarters in the Americas. It was several hours later or mid morning on the eastern coast of the continental United States of America after Sithis had visited the Justice League. The whole League had gone to alert when word gotten out that the Dark Knight was out cold. "So exactly what happened?" Raiden inquired to the scientist. He didn't particularly care what his other half side had been doing. This thing should have been a simple thing, he didn't understand precisely how they could befoul such a simple civil project.

"A large portion of the Mousers went offline."

He frowned, a large portion was rather vague of an answer, and Raiden did not like vague answers. "How many is a large portion?" He pressed.

"About half." Stockman squeaked cowering before the system lord and the master of the Foot clan, the later of whom was sitting slightly infront of the Shinto Kami's raised platform.

"I would label this a failure my lord." the Shredder added reaching for his prongs, which were sitting before him.

The inventor didn't appreciate the slight, "Well that's why you wouldn't make a good scientist." Baxter Stockman, Saki's top scientist, retorted hotly. "You can't write off every problem as a failure otherwise you'll never get anywhere."  
The system lord took the moment to glare them both into submission, and more to the point into glorious silence. The failure didn't make since, it should have been simple, "Both of you enough, the project will continue as long as this doesn't occur again. If it does Saki-kun isn't known for being merciful. Now go do your little skit for the television, I expect a full report by this afternoon do not fail me. Find what is wrong, and fix it." He snapped banishing the man with a gesture towards the door.

Stockman scurried from the room. "He acts like a rat." Hun muttered after the man had left the audience chamber.

"Saki since I'm here we will address the matters at hand, since Talpa is currently in a stalemate with those Ronin," Well it was stalemate because neither of them, Talpa's forces, or those with the other five armors, were doing anything at present. Strictly that was better for him, peace was good for everyone. "he is unable to render assistance and it would not be a good idea to even consider the Dark Brotherhood, given they are currently dealing with their rivals. It is thus I am sending Aoshi-kun and Sano, I trust you can complete your mission without problems."

"Hai Raiden-sama." The fearsome Shredder gave a low bow of great respect to the Shinto god of storms.

At the same time humanoid mutant Turtles, mutant ninja turtles were presently settling into their new lair in the sewers beneath New York. Donatello was working on some of the welding for the lair while Michelangelo was occupied setting up the entertainment center they had cobbled together.

To Mikey's dismay, there simply wasn't enough power to get the televisions running in what he had now dubbed the "Turtle Cave." It thus was the cause for him to strike up a conversation with his more technically savvy sibling Donatello as to what the would call their new lair.

After a few names were suggested, Splinter, their father figure a himself a mutated humanoid rat, interupted to inform them and announce that, "We will call this place home." The sagely Rat then took the time to proceed, and to inquire as the location of their remaining two brothers. As it was the two remaining turtles were apparently occupied with salvaging items from the old lair.

Leonardo and Raphael were at the momentfinished gathering the items from said old lair, among them a broken canister with the letters TCRI and custom sign that proclaimed 'Sewer Sweet Sewer.' Leo expressed some sorrow over losing their home of 15 years. His more hot headed brother Raphael had other concerns. Desired of vengeance concerned him, vengeance against whoever had sent the Mousers into their old lair in the first place. With everything packed, the two brothers returned to the new lair in a vehicle designed by Donatello as the Sewer Slider.

It was upon their returning to the new lair that Mikey again wished to test out the entertainment center this time with his salvaged DVD collection. Unfortunately for him as soon as he turned on the television of the entertainment center, that he was interrupted by his more tenchology inclinded sibling, who wanted to watch the television News broadcast about the press conference which was being at New York's newest and though hardly leading technology company, Stocktronics. The new company's advantage was of course due to their lead man's brilliance and some minor technological sharing from a certain power whose interests in earth probably weren't healthy. The big wigs of the company were presently taking bids on how long it took Oscorp, or one of the other major Corps to buy it out.

Founder and CEO, Dr. Baxter Stockman was at the moment giving a short speech before unveiling his invention to deal with the city's rat problem, the Stocktronics Mouser. To the surprise of the turtles, the robot's design was precisely the same as the cadre of robots that destroyed their old lair some time earlier.

It was all Raphael needed to get up and prepare to leave the lair. He had one thing on his mind that was wanting to go after Stockman, but Splinter stopped the humanoid turtle citing the near disaster that had been their, the turtles, last incursion to the surface world. Watching the rest of the press conference, the Turtles looked on as the Mouser prototype eats several rats in a maze. It was a rather concerning process, the next bet would probably be how long PETA took to claim the Mousers were inhumane to rats.

– Chapter Conclusion -

Helltanz's notes:


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Lightning Fervor

Helltanz's notes: This is definitely one of the weaker chapters, that is indeed in need of a more intensive rewrite.

-Chapter begin -

Michelangelo and Donatello were presently in the lair with Splinter waiting. The prior was at the moment setting up his video wall; a floor to ceiling stack of TVs and computer monitors, while the latter was studying one of the disabled small bipedal robots dubbed by their creator as Mousers.

Donatello hoped that through careful examination of the robot, he could determine its secrets. As with the Tauri's FX 302 Program the mouser was based entirely on the tauri technological base, unlike the 302 it required no exoctic materials that needed to be procured from off world. Thus it just looked like a genius had made robots, unless one looked close at the sensor systems, and the computer systems themselves to a lesser extent. That was when one might get truly suspicious about Stockman's level of genius, after all there was regular genius and then there was super tech.

Their remaining two siblings had arrived a few minutes prior on the SewerSled after gathering the last collection of their belongings from the old, trashed, lair. When Michelangelo finally plugged in the video wall, well the first thing that came on the screen was a yet another TV report about Baxter Stockman and his latest invention, the Stocktronics Mouser. It seemed he was the talk of the whole town, hmph it'd be very soon he'd have lawyers from all the corps coming to buy him out, one way or another.

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Splinter watched intently as Stockman continued to talk about the very robots that destroyed their old lair and had almost destroyed them. The TV report was being brought to them by one April O'Neill who was apparently Stockman's assistant. It was apparently her big first time break.

As soon as the report concluded the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles decided they wanted to immediately go find Stockman and put a stop to all of his, obviously continuing, Mouser project.

Master Splinter however was quick to forbid another above ground adventure in light of what had happened the last time they had risked an trip to the surface. "So what are we supposed to do exactly, just twiddle our thumbs while that bastard and his robots trounce around our whole sewers and wreck it all, what if they find this place?"

"Look maybe Splinter's right, given what happened last time, and the fact that Stockman clearly has some kind of back, maybe we should wait."  
His most impetuous brother didn't wish to hear it. "I am sick of waiting." He declared, "I don't care who is backing this Stockman's little project."  
Donatello pointed to the muted collection of television screens, "Its a major city project, just busting in and breaking stuff"  
"Well maybe the city needs to get a new project to work, we've already lost one lair, I'm not loosing another to these things." He responded, "So what we need to do is track them back to their source, and wreck them, and whatever is tied to them. You said they're remote controlled so lets find the source and break that, then we'll get Stockman."  
Mikey looked at him a little unsure, "uh and then what bro, I mean we can't exactly nab a major inventor, did you see him he's all over the news."

-scene break-

On the top floor Oroku Saki was growing concerned, "He looks barely nervous," Murmured the master of the Foot clan, "I apparently didn't impress on him the importance of this assignment." Hun snickered rather abruptly drawing his attention. "Is there something amusing Hun? Something I should perhaps be made aware of."  
The massive gang leader shook his head, rather quickly "No master Shredder, I was voluntering to impress upon Doctor Stockman the importance of Master Raiden's assignment, sir."

"That will not be necessary Hun." Commented the system lord, even if it was a very tempting offer. Stockman's arrogance was growing to be an incredible nuisance, "I am sure I can come up with something to remind Stockman of the importance of success in this endeavor,"

Stockman was useful, because he was intelligent, and one could never have too many bright minds, but the man's ego rivaled one of the goa'uld and that irritated the god. The city had almost cancelled the project due to Thanagarian's blasted invasion, which really had been a nuisance since it had complicated issues on Earth. The Thanagarian invasion had spread alien technology all over the planet, and that... had been a nuisance. The mainstream Tauri scientific community might actually get somewhere useful in the next decade in understand anti gravity theory now.

Of course things were now beginning to settle on Earth, it had been a year nearly without incident, which meant finally things were getting back to normal. If Stockman's program proved to be a success and he did locate what he was supposed to find it would be very useful. If it wasn't, it would be unforunate, but what would be worse was if they did find them, but the Tauri found out about the Umtrom. The humans were so very vocal, and nervous about their concern about aliens.

It was why they needed to deal with the Umtrom before the NID or another such organization found them. Under the Protected Planets Treaty he couldn't regulate such interactions, it had to be stargate related for him to interfere, and the Umtrom most certainly weren't. Even if they were 'officially' enemies of the goa'uld there wasn't much he would be able to do. On the one hand it was actually fortunate that the Umtrom were really that damned good at hiding. On the other the Tauri actually gaining that technology would potentially make them a very annoying little thorn.

As it was the Goa'uld were busy, Heru'ur, Cronus, and Olokun had formalized an alliance with each other. Svaarog, and Ares had be defeated, with Cronus annexing most of Ares's holdings, though there had been some ill tidings about things going missing. Svaarog on the other hand well his domain had been divided up between mutliple bickering lords.

The alliances had been drawn up, and while there were independents, they'd pick sides or they'd end up being destroyed in the coming war. It was becoming increasingly like that the war would come before Earth could defend itself, or the Asgard fixed their problems. Sooner rather than later the system lords would go to war, and earth would become a very valuable piece on the board.

-scene break-

Stockman had decided to pad his pockets and use his creations for a little side job of robbing banks and stores. The results, well he was impressed with them especially when the Mousers deposisted cash and jewels in front of him. It was a rather quick payoff. It wasn't like he'd done anything like this before. He was abrubtly cut from elation when, a hologram of both the Shredder and Raiden appeared. For Stockman this was a bit unexpected one could say. "ah what are you doing here, this is my facility you can't just barge in like this I need some advance notice for when you people come over," He ranted irritably at them.

For Raiden this was a nusiance, so he left the matter to Oroku Saki, "The price of your failure will be most severe Stockman, far more than the prince of a mundane failure,"" the leader of the foot ninja proclaimed. It didn't help Stockman's attitude any, and the man turned off the communicator, angrily. His alarm went off, though strictly speaking he was relieved that it wasn't fanatical jaffa coming through his front door, "I don't quite understand your species, but I can always find out from the corpses," He declared upon confronting his latest intruders; the turtles. The Lasers defending his assembly line were actually the most blatantly alien technology in the whole facilty, having been back engineered from Goa'uld tech. It was merely bad luck that the mountings were still Tauri derived systems, which primarily allowed the turtles to manage to destroy the weapons.

Poor luck for Stockman considering that the first turtle to reach him was Raphael. "Break into our home, wreck our house will you!" The turtle growled angrily, throttling the man.

"Look, Raphael I know you're angry, but look," She gestured to the accumulated evidence, "There is enough evidence here to ensure he goes away for a long time,"

Raphael dropped the man, which just happened to be enough of a prompt for him to call his Mousers and escape their clutches. Stockman was too busy running away to care that the Turtles were wrecking their way through his mousers at least until the massive blast door slammed and he was then confronted by Hun"Having trouble doc? Huh, imagine that you'll never guess who happens to want a word with you, hmm,"A meaty hand clapsed around Stockman's shoulders and lifted him up, "Why don't you come with me, eh we'll get this straightened out."

Stockman was not so confident about being grabbed by Hun and frog marched up to the top floor. On the plus Oroku Saki had taken one look at the security photos of the turtles, and slashed through them with his prongs, "So it appears we have yet another group on Earth," He muttered normally he liked this planet's diversity but now it was beginning to grate on him. "find who they align with, if they are allies of the Umtrom kill them."

"But, but, the turtles they're the reason I failed." The good doctor protested fumbling with the excuse.

"No thievery seems the reason you failed, for all I know these are yet more miserable Tauri heroes. Your greed bears the brunt of your failure that you attracted unwanted attention likely for it your burden," Raiden hissed eyes flashing. "I leave this too you Oroku, do nothing that cannot be undone," The system lord vanished hastily departing to his orbiting flagship.

The shredder was not in any better mood than his liege lord, "Your idiocy has placed us all in a problematic situation," He hissed, more than Stockman probably realized, the loss of Stocktronics could be written off as a hostile competitor going too far, but the loss of the technology that they couldn't show the public that was painful. Oroku Saki however knew he had other pressured, Talpa's recent fuck up should have been an opportunity to curry additional favor with the system lord. Stockman's failure however would be his failure, and that would not reflect well on him to the system lord. "Our lord has decided no permanet damage, Hun I leave such too you, take him with you and leave,"  
The man nodded, even as Stockman screamed and flailed as he tried fruitless to get out the huge tatooed man's grip.

Oroku Saki, the Shredder sat back and rested his other hand on the top of his prongs, this was... unfortunate. He had seventy two hours of surveillance footage to review, he needed to know more about these turtles, as if he hadn't had enough to deal with before this. He hoped that perhaps would be right, that these were just yet another group of Tauri superheroes coming onto the scene, but at the same time he knew ninjas, and he didn't know this group, but he could recognize the style. It didn't bode well. To an extent he regretted that Aoshi's was otherwise occupied, it was true that the other Shinobi master might be able to spare resources to assist, but the price was perhaps not worth it. Itf Aoshi was truly needed then Raiden would be further annoyed, and then there was the fact he'd end up still owing Aoshi a favor. Not something he really wanted, it was a pride issue

-scene break-

Aboard the Sun Tzu development of technology was continuing for the coming conflict. "What is the status report on the Mobile Doll project?" Raiden asked. The Goa'uld already had 'basic' automation systems, but strictly speaking they tended to prefer relying on living pilots. It was for a mutlitude of reasons really, but simply put well most system lords didn't like the idea of AI. Apophis had some time ago toyed with such systems, but whatever he'd found he just must not have liked it.

The Mobile Doll program was a 'next generation' combat automaton though a skilled pilot would still be irreplaceable these 'dolls' could be used to supplement that pilot in battle.

She looked at him "The mobile dolls are operating at a high level of efficiency."

A lot had changed, and Raiden no longer had much interest in having to deal with the politics and attempted coups from underlings, something the other system lords had grown tired of.

"High Level of Efficiency? He questioned, an irritable tinge to his voice, "Then what precisely is the problem?" The system lord pressed.

"Well untill we can complete an efficient Ally Identification code they well not every," The scientist trailed off, "Well not everyone uses the new model ships so..." The underling trailed off not so discretely jerking his head at the 'window'.

Raiden frowned, "You mean they attack Ha'tak that don't have our Identification Codes." He remarked getting some of his allies to install such devices would be easier said than done for some. Yu wouldn't be the issue, the Jade Emperor hadn't even bothered to install cloaking technology on his Ha'tak, but almost every other major update had quickly been adapted.  
"Yes."

The Shinto Kami made a show to grit his teeth, "Wonderful." He remarked sarcastically the Goa'uld had never been big on electronic warfare and sensor countermeasures, which was something that was becoming necessary. "Any additional reports?" Though a part of that whole issue with the matter of electronic warfare was just because of all the energy Ha'tak gave off.  
"Well they do perform glowingly in combat situation the average Jaffa pilot even with the new supplementary Operation System," He announced, the Jaffa hadn't been meant to pilot mobile suits since they were living incubators, and there were other issues. "two to three shots they'll destroy most fighters, including phase one Mobile Suits, except the Type Zero." The underling leaving off the obviously to the end of the sentence. "The new Taurus Mobile Dolls and the Virgo Mobile Dolls' beam cannons will destroy an Alkesh in one shot with some minor improvements. Yet if the enemy is using the same units as our allies they will target both units, more than likely they would target our units if not for the IDC transmission units on the Older units which distuingish them from the units used by the other System lords. The Average Jaffa or any average pilot is unable to rewrite the command sequence in enough time to prevent friendly fire."

Raiden nodded that was to be expected computer programming was a rare skill to find amongst even his Jaffa. Ptah was the only Goa'uld who could boast such, and that had always irritated Ra, "What about in civilian areas?" He inquired, he like Sokar had rather large major industrial complexes on his worlds, not to mention there was the issue of deploying Mobile Suits on Earth if it came to that.  
"They have demonstrated the ability to alter the firing controls on their weapons to minimize collateral damage," Was the response to his inquiring, which was good news, "and their flight capabilities are easily cabable of navitagting cityscape areas."

"Well at least somethings going ahead as planned. Transfer a team to Hinotama and set up a Mobile doll base there. The Tauri codes are rather easy to identify so they shouldn't destroy any Tauri units."

"Understood."

The invasion of the Tauri by the Thanagarians was something which hadn't been expected, and could lead to complications, whether if the Thanagarians decided to launch a follow up attack for revenge or if another threat that was off the grid came along. In any case keeping forces near earth would at least slow down any attempts. Actually he kind of hoped the Thanagarians would attack, it might help the situation on earth.

- scene break-

The current Tauri base, their Alpha Site, was located outside the usual Goa'uld Stargate network, on forrested planet with numerous mountains and large reserves of Naqudah and trinium. Strictly speaking the SGC was quite pleased at the find, "Welcome to the Alpha site Gentleman." the Base commander greeted as the Free Jaffa and Tokra step through the Stargate. "The Alpha site is Earth's primary frontline base in preparing to fight the Goa'uld. We are currently nearing the completion of two new Prometheus cruisers so security is a little on the tight side. SG-1 will probably like to see you folks. They are currently aboard the Liberty which is at undergoing a scheduled series of upgrades. In any case go ahead and make yourselves comfortable." The base commander stated indicating the Type Three Ha'tak that was 'docked' planetside.

Establishing this base had taken some effort, the Ha'taks which comprised the present backbone of their fleet, and even the Prometheus had all been carefully gone over with Asgard scanning technology to make nothing was on the ships to track them. It had yielded an extra subspace transponder on one of the Ha'tak, which the SGC had quickly gotten rid of. It'd later, after they'd found another one, been determined to be Tok'ra in origin.

"We are thankful for the Tauri's hospitallity." Bratac bowed to the air force officer.

The base commander nodded, "It's perfectly alright Master Bratac what are friends for after all. Just make yourselves comfortable, we'll make sure any necessary medical aide is avaible if its needed."

-Chapter Conclusion-

Helltanz's notes:


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

Lightning Fervor

Helltanz's notes: Mainly SG-1 for this chapter, though it gives some important plot development and information.

– Chapter begin -

The Tauri Space Fleet was hardly the terror of the galaxy. The Liberty was a modern type 2 Ha'tak. These type of ships comprised the core of the system lords fleets. Like all though everyone's type twos were mutating into new ship classes. It was such that Tauri were having a problem identifying all the seperate sub types that were cropping up. Such a thing would never have been tolerated during Ra's regime, but Ra was dead.

At present the Tauri or rather the United States was doing well for itself as far as fledgling space fleets went, and the USAF was getting quite a bit of support from the bureaucrats in light of the recent Thanagarian invasion. Unfortunately due to a mix of infiltrations and other reasons the Goa'uld just weren't being considered a threat to Earth by a number of politicians despite the SGC's statements, and protests that that was a stupid position.

Teal'c welcomed his teacher aboard the Pel'tak, "Master Bratac." The former first prime of Apophis greeted walking forward to greet his predecessor.  
"Ah, Teal'c it is good to see you my friend." the older jaffa responded to his student.

Jack O'neill was particularly displeased by the nonsense which was being thrown around by certain senators and representatives to the Congress, but he wasn't going to complain about the additional funding. "Hey Bratac, just in time to see our new ride's upgrade you sticking around to see the launch of our new ships." Jack was quite pleased with this turn of events, even though he knew it signalled a change for offworld command. Congress wanted the SGC to retask to defending earth, and the US as a priority, and scale back anthropological explorations. That'd, Daniel had been promised over and over again, would remain important, but now there were other concerns.

"Indeed I would be honored to witness the launch of you new warships O'Neill." Bratac was pleased that the Tauri now had true space warships, even if he was unsure whether the vessels would be able to go toe to toe with a capital ship of the False Gods. Of course Ha'taks were not quite standardized when it came to technology, some system lords built better vessels than others leading to a tech disparity. This had been true even before Ra had died, now though the Goa'uld knew war was coming.

The Liberty was accompanied in its place in the Tauri Starfleet by a second type two, named the Independence, which had been obtained from Anubis and was undergoing more substantial refits with extensive study of Anubis's modifications to the weapons and shields.  
"Exactly how are you updraging the Ha'tak?" Perseus, the Tok'ra leader, inquired "We were under the belief the Tauri hadn't reached such a level of technolgy."

"Well the Asgard have installed sheilds, we've installed better point defense system, missles, and railguns." Carter explained ignoring the barb. "We've also refit the Hangars to better suit our new F-302s and we've also improved the targeting computers. Similar upgrades are being done on the Independence."

"That is the type two the Tauri procured from Anubis is it not?"

The base commander beat the leader of SG 1 to answering the question, "Yes." The Independence as it had been named was a type two procured from Anubis, something that had also increasingly strained ties between the two.  
"Don't tell me you still sore we've got those ships." O'Neill groaned, the Tok'ra were really starting to get to be a nuisance, not that they weren't already a nuisance, but seriously they were starting already.  
"The Tauri are not ready for such power." the Tok'ra leader argued.

Even the Jaffa was getting tired of the Tok'ra's complaints about this issue. Of course the Jaffa tended to loose patience with the paternalistic patronizing of the Tok'ra even faster than the Tauri, "Friends we should focus on other matters." Bratac interjected, as it was it was foolish to argue about this issue considering how badly outnumbered they were by the smallest of Goa'uld System Lords.

"Yeah guys theres no reason to fight." Doctor Jackson agreed speaking up at last, and really hoping to head off yet another argument between the Air Force and the Tok'ra about the Ha'tak.

"The briefing is at eleven hundred hours at that time we can focus our energy to more productive endeavors." The base commander called.

-scene break-

"As you know the balance of power has been drastically altered, both by the return of Anubis and Raiden's technological revolution." Carter announced, "Raiden's latest weapon is the mobile suit. They are fastly superior to the much more fighter design previously employed by the Goa'uld. His own fleet composistion had also taken a radically different role than any other System lords." This included even his closest ally Yu Huang Shang Ti, " Though the mainstay of these ships are smaller than the traditional Ha'tak," This mainly meant the smaller ships that served escort, and ship killers, "what we are preenting here is all the information we have comprised on all of Raiden's new ships." Carter turned on the projector and brought up the first slide. "We'll start with the Shinku Rai Tatsu these heavily armed battleships serve as Raiden's command ships, we have confirmed there are at least five of these, that we know of." She paused allowing the projector to rotate the holographic image of the ship so the assembled allies and officers of the SGC could observe the ship. "They are approximately twelve hundred meters long they are heavily armed and carry their own detachment of Mobile suits. With regards to numbers we estimate they carry several squadrons." Carter brought up another slide this time of a sleek if small, by usual galactic standards though larger than the Prometheus class, blue vessel.

"The next warship is what is known as the Yamato, these high speed destroyers, as its class designation suggest are extremely agile ships and can exceed most ships in both sublight speed and hyperspace, they are about three hundred five meters long they carry around twelve standard Mobile Suits as well as one for the Squadron commander, this class seems to be replacing the two hundred fifty-five meter long already dated Tsuigara Frigates…" Carter changed slides this time displaying a smaller green vessel, which was slightly stubbier and who's 'pod' structures were less defined, underneath the vessel was a larger bulb shaped pod. "…they carry a squadron of mobile suits as well orbital reentry pods to deliver Mobile suits to the surface of a planet." The slide changed yet again displaying a much larger, though still only a little more than half the length of a Ha'tak vessel, warship. The new warship was painted in dark colors, primarily darker hues of blue.

"This ship was been identified as the Skyborne Calamity class Heavy Cruiser they are heavily armed and possess powerful shielding derived from ancient technology." Thor had warned them about these, the newest ships of the class were dangerous, they were Raiden's original dedicated capital ship hunters "Eight of these took out six Asgard Beliskner class without losing any of their own number a couple years ago. They are six hundred eighty meters long and carry a detachment of eighteen mobile suits, there is one known subclass which is twenty meters longer and has pair of wing like flaps added to the wings on the side."

"Wait, okay the Asgard here said Raiden's had them for a while," There was a brief acknowledgement to question, "is this the base line for his new ships, presumably the bigger was a test. So whats the goal? Whats his doctrine"

"We don't think Raiden has formalized a doctrine yet," Another intelligence officer interjected, "Right now he's built a fleet of specialized ships, presumably to counter other Goa'uld," The man gave carter the go ahead to proceed,

Another holographic image was brought up by the device. This ship was primarily white with red highlights. The central body was connected to four separate leg like structures, with wings extending from the upper portion of the main hull along with a 'coning tower' like structure. "This is Artemis's Pegasus class like the Ha'tak it comes in several variations they are all around three hundred meters and carry a large number of mobile suits. They're primarily planetary assault ships," A picture of what had been identified as the Albion came up, which to some extent resembled the Pegasus, though the rear 'legs' had been expanded and fused together, and the forward legs had been made much longer.

"the Albion sub class has been identified as favored by Raiden's main force it carries sixteen Mobile Suits." Carter announced, "According our recent intelligence he plans to lay down a larger capital ship scale design based off the Albion,"

"So are we taking it out, or we just gonna let him build it?"  
"Given the signifcance of Raiden's fleet build up, we actually think its better for Raiden to waste the resources exploring dozens of design avenues," Major Davis added, "Military Intelligence, and the Pentagon agree that given that a war is coming Raiden expending so much effort is probably going to keep him on the defensive for a while."

The slide changed to display an Izumo class, which was straight and narrow, with a fins on each side of the main hull mounting weapons, and the same 'coning tower' like structure. "The next ship is the Izumo it posses heavy shields and armor but retains high speed, it seems to serve a carrier, it is two hundred ninety meters long and carries fourteen mobile suits easily, these ships are grouped by coloring though we have yet identified the signifigance of this."

Another vessel appeared as Carter changed slides displaying a grey wedge shaped vessel that lacked the previous vessels obvious heavy weapons.

"The next vessel is the Meanalos carrier it is three hundred meters long they seem to make up planetary defense fleets belonging to Raiden's more trusted underlords, because it lacks offensive striking power, even with their mobile suit compliments." The Holographic display changes again displaying what appeared to be another variation of the Pegasus class, like the Albion class its rear legs had been fused together into the main body forming a larger main body.

"The next warship is the Daitenchi Ausault carrier it's a hybrid between the offensive strike cababilities of a light cruiser and the Mobile suit compliment of a carrier, its four hundred twenty meters long and are cabable of launching three mobile suit squadrons."

Carter was gestured to hold up as she pressed the button for the next hologram, "This gentlemen is our real concern, while the bulk of Raiden's new ships are smaller specialized ships, there have been exceptions."

A picture of the Peacemillion appeared. The ship was a massive kite shaped monster three times the length of the typical Ha'tak vessel, and as tall as a Ha'tak was wide.

"This monstrosity is the Peacemillion class Super Battleship it is more than three thousand meters long and is heavily armed, we estimate it possibly carries in excess of one thousand mobile suits. Currently we lack accurate information on Raiden's Mobile suits to create an accurate briefing, this concludes our report on Raiden's Fleet."

Jack started clapping, he was about the only to do so. "Nice job Carter."

"Indeed your briefing was most informative Major Carter."

"Thank you sirs."

The intelligence officer who had spoken up first stepped to the hologram, "Our next concerns are the movements of Raidnen's fleet." A star chart is projected of Goa'uld space with numerous highlighted portions. The Goa'uld controlled a large chunk of the galaxy and despite the capacity of the Ha'tak vessels the Goa'uld preferred sticking around the worlds they had already been colonized with humans. "This chart represents in realtime the individual territories and balance of power in our galaxy. These areas are regions of contest between varying system lords." The man took the time indicate a large Region of space highlighted in an indigo hue. "This region indicates Raiden's controlled space where he has held dominon for several centuries the darker the region the longer it has been in his control or the stronger his force is in the area. Lightning bolts indicate major military locations." From beside him, Carter took a minute to shoot a look at O'neill, since it had been his idea to mark things with lightning bolts. "Raiden's outerworld defensive fleets are known to be comprised mainly of former frontline Ha'tak and Menealos carriers with support provided by Izumo ussually of the Green vairety, as well as orbital defense platforms but that's as far as we know defenses go." The man paused clicking the control, "As you can see from these areas Yu's new Super-class Ha'tak have begun to move into these advances seem to be coordinated with Raiden's forces," And that was true, Yu and Raiden along with their underlords had hit with a suprising amount of ships, overwhelming in both number and firepower against the minor independent lords of the region, "we estimate from current advance rates that these territories will be completely assimilated within three weeks."

"How did you obtain this information?" the Tokra leader demanded, in a tone not dissimilar to a someone very used to always being answered.

Jack crossed his arms of his chest, "I'm afraid we can't disclose that," He stated, "for security reasons." He added sardonically

"As I was saying, on the other side you have Anubis and his allies conquering these forces, his progress is not much slower but he is impaired by the fact his allies lack numbers." That was the only thing slowing Anubis down, and the man took a moment to gesture to the areas on the display highlighted in grey, they had actually considered using black, but the contrast hadn't worked well, partiularly a cluster of Jackal headed icons indicating Anubis primary fleet hub, "The other major group of System lords will play nuetral should conflict break out, but if push comes to shove we have no idea where there loyalties lie."

The man took a moment, and then stepped back. The recent months had been problematic. Heru'ur and Cronus were the strongest of these two and seem to be agreeing to work together, and even had expanded to include Olokun into their little alliance. This group has consolidated a sizable region of space. Still two system lords working together was one thing, three, three was always a tricky thing. Then again Anubis was back, and had allied with Baal.

It was very likely that areas within the next two years war would devour the bulk of Goa'uld space. Even with six system lords nominally neutral, four preparing for war would be enough. The latest system lord sumit had proven that. As had the recent out break in hostilities between Yu and Anubis.

"We believe it is only a matter of time before total war breaks out which is why this allaince is so important," The pentagon liason declared, "it is likely the war will focus between the system lords but there is a chance this conflict will endanger all of our peoples."

Perseus didn't seem nearly as calm. "Endanger us Raiden will not rest untill he has slain every Tok'ra, if we do not insure the System lords remain divided we will all face similair fates, you must give us the source of your information."

"We can't, it wouldn't matter even if you knew." O'Neill stated. "Raiden will target our source of intell and we will lose the only source of intelligence we can depend on." As it stood he didn't consider the Tok'ra as a reliable source of information. There had just been too many screw ups, and as it was, well the Tok'ra were just another group of aliens to Congress.

Chapter Conclusion

Helltanz's notes:


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17

Lightning Fervor

Helltanz's notes:

-Chapter begin –

For SG1 and the rest of of those attending the briefing such a focus had been given on Raiden's fleet just because it was the most unique. Briefings on Yu, Olokun, Heru'ur, Cronus, Bastet, Kali, and Baal had been far shorter simply because they all had largely traditional fleet structures, though all had adopted some new ships. It was Sokar, and Anubis to whom the rest of the summit focused on.

Sokar employed massive mobile armors, generally piloted by one to three people. Though thus far these massive assault craft alone weren't for destroying top of the line Ha'tak in groups they were exceptionally dangerous to them. Anubis seemed to be considering a similar venue. Anubis also seemed to share Raiden's ship design philosophy switching to producing more specialized ships, though without the mass production of dozens of separate ship classes. Of course for the moment that was probably the result of Anubis simply not having the established resource, and industry base.

The briefing however heralded bad news as well. The tauri were stepping back from things for the moment. They simply didn't have the choice to openly confront the system lords. For congress the Earth had been threatened too many times, so while the Stargate would remain active the main focus was now the construction of offworld bases, and hold out positions in the event earth was threatened.

It'd been explained that the Prometheus-class ships were intended to help protect Earth, but also to help transport supplies to bases. They'd been doing the same with Earth's Ha'tak. There was yet some good news, the Tauri had introduced their own techniques to the staff weapons, turning them into crudely concealable carbines with primitive folding iron stocks. It was crude development yes, and while traditionalists adhorred such, it was also true that the Tauri were merely introducing their own version of what some goa'uld were giving to their Jaffa guard. The tauri however had a large contribution of weapons that were of earth make, that too drew some criticism from the traditional jaffa, who had hoped for proper staff weapons, or zats, as the Tauri called them, at least.

Still the Jaffa appreciated the shelter, and the rapidly growing fortifications. The Tauri had traded a bit of naquadah from the Anubis asteroid to the Tok'ra for a collection of tunnelling crystals.

Rumor was the Tok'ra had built a series of bombs to strike Raiden, Sokar, and Anubis. All three attacks had failed mysteriously the result of warriors in black, but the Tok'ra hadn't said anything, only hoping to acquire more naquadah. The crystals though had been put to good use tunnelling deep down into the local mountain range. Eventually they would relocate the stargate there for now though, it would stay were it was.

"We appreciate the Tauri efforts on our behalf, but surely pulling from the field so early is a mistake," Bra'tac cautioned, "The rebellion against the false gods grows daily, but I fear the youngsters will demand action, even though we are wise to caution patience in these times when the System Lords prepare to set the whole galaxy to blaze."  
Major Davis frowned, "We don't have the resources to commit" He ignored another of the Jaffa rebellion's leaders protest about how the Tauri claimed their armies numbered in the tens of millions, yet could not spare a force to aid the jaffa who were dying, "Our world has been invaded once a year at least for the last five years in a row. Our government has decided security now means we can better help with the rebellion later," That actually shut up the Jaffa, for the Goa'uld planetary invasion was a messy business, most goa'uld were not afraid to hold the high ground, and crash land transports near keys points laden with thousands of men regardless of losses on either side.

-scene break—

For the Order of the Phoenix well the last year had been a mess. They'd finally swallowed the alien pill, and started in depth research, even looking at ancient Thanagarian artifacts and some goa'uld artifacts, and comparing them. It was big step due to wizards having separated themselves from 'muggles' for hundreds of years, but even they had noticed the fighting. Not surprising considering it was a little hard to miss warships hundreds of meters long flying over cities and giant robots fighting in said cities.  
The real way hogwarts students had known about were the flashing lights in the sky. There also been astronomy classes as well, and when you could see the glow of a single ship from orbit was one thing, being able to see the glow of many dozen was another. With telescopes students could make out actual shapes as ships fought high above.

"Welcome everyone." Albus greeted the members of the order, "Mungdungus, and Alastor both have information they have brought to us. Gentlemen." He gestured to the two men in question.

"We'll I don't have much Albus but I know that building got a whole lot buisier recently," He proclaimed with a slight slur, "especially after all those Thanagarians got driven off." They'd kept a distant watch on the Foot Tower for the last few years, it had seemed a wise course of action.

"Thank you Mr. Fletcher." He had hoped for a more detailed report, but for the moment it would have to suffice. He imagined a place being a great deal busier could mean a lot of things, "Alastor if you would go ahead, while Mr. Fletcher composes himself?"

Alastor didn't like this but he'd already given up hope trying to dissuade them on just how much of a bad idea this was. "Well seeing as you all are determined to find Sithis come Hell or High water I feel I should brief you all," He stated, his tone announcing just how stupid he thought this endeavour. "Its been confirmed the forces that drove off the Bird People belonged to the New God Raiden, additionally just prior to the fleet arriving an older ritual of summoning was used in an area where there are no known members of the brotherhood, but that alone wouldn't justify assuming there aren't any. As I have said before," Moody declared loudly banding his hand on the table, "Raiden is tied with Sithis, as evidenced by our confrontation," It'd taken some time but they'd finally been able to convince Dumbledore to come around to fully explaining to the whole order, what had happened. They hadn't really been convinced. "bringing an army of that magnitude. Sithis was offered something in Gotham city to intervene, and Raiden came with an army the likes of which we've not seen since ancient times." He knew, Moody certainly did that Sithis valued something enough to send an army, perhaps not his army but one he could call for. "Raiden though has a violent and bloody feud going on with the vampires who opposed Voldemort in France. Now Sithis himself has no problem with Vampires, in fact its not uncommom for a member of the Dark Brotherhood to be a vampire." His fellow knights were fearful of just what concession Sithis could have gained that he would intervene like this. Isaac feared a childe, or godchild, and the whole of the Knights shivered at the thought of a full blooded heir of the dark god being born on earth. As if Azura's line on earth wasn't trouble enough.

The Order's resident archeologist spoke up. "So are we looking for something particular, an item, a person, a location?" Bill knew he could handle research.

"Wouldn't Harry come himself? Surely for something so important to," Albus Dumbledore inquired trying to think up a plot. The headmaster was old, and truthfully though he'd seen the lights in the sky it was hard to comprehend such things as spacefleets and such. Still he knew about naval ships, and broomsticks and flying carpets so he rationalized his understanding like that.

"The accords would prevent. In any case he isn't likely to remain on Earth any longer than he needs to. The accords are all that keep the Gods from War, it is all the spares creation from a battling of Aedra and Daedra. If not for the Accords he would otherwise likely he would be far more discreet about this search." Moody paused, he knew from talking with the other chapters of knights that supposedly another accord, this one between the New Gods exited, "There are rumor still of Earth being sheltered under agreements between the New Gods, as well."

Albus nodded, that made sense even if it was troublesome. Treaties were very important amongst wizards and magical beings so it did make sense. Moody wasn't completely sure whether said information was accurate, but then the Aedra had yet to speak about the situation of the new gods. "Sithis cannot act without proper provocation, like a ritual, but those rituals that actually summon Sithis himself have been well guarded by men since before the fall of the Roman Senate to corruption."

The accords between the Aedra and Daedra 'signed' at the conclusion of the last War in Heaven, long before the goa'uld had evolved, specifically outlined the self imposed limits of the gods. Amongst the rules were non interference clauses in the mortal realms without due reason. Reasons such mortals toying with things they were better off not getting even remotely close to.

His fellow knights were worried about this situation, and he wasn't able to impress onto Dumbledore the seriousness of this. Sithis as the god of death was amongst the most dangerous of the Daedric lords, and if he was beginning to act it would not bode well for those who served the Aedra.

The scarred man continued, "But that's not what you need to know since you are so insistence on pursuing Sithis, I'll brief you on what we know." He declared, "As I mentioned previously the Dark Brotherhood, the Brotherhood has several ranks the lowest are entry level members, The next tier are known as Slayers, followed by Eliminator, and then Assassin and between the Black Hand and the regular members are the judicial members of the Brotherhood they are given the rank of Executioner, finally at the top of these are ten members per world these ten are the elite of the Dark Brotherhood, known as the Black Hand, there are three ranks within the Black Hand five Silencers one for each member, they serve as aids, bodyguards and as the next in line to succeed a member of the councils, they are sometimes likened to each member of the hand as to each finger the silencer is the talon. The Silencers members hold one additional task amongst there duties carrying out the Ritual of Purification, though it is unknown what this ritual entails exactly, nothing good is what I would speculate. There are four speakers on Earth the next to highest mortal rank in the brotherhood, they report directly to the mortal head the listener. The Listener reports to Mephala she informs him where the Brotherhood is needed, above her is Sithis himself at times he will appear and bequeath tasks to a member of the brotherhood."

Albus nodded, acknowledging the dearth of information. In truth Moody's information was nearly flawless... nearly yes those were the ranks of the dark brotherhood, but he was wrong about the number of Dark Hand per world, ten that was ridiculously small.

A magically projected image of Raiden appears. "As you have seen this is Raiden, when Sithis assumes another identity he uses a different form of fighting, the order has no such information on this alter ego, however…"

The image changes to Sithis's image, older and regal, with black scelera eyes with emerald slits, and dressed in a robe similar to the classical images of the Black Hand but there were two Daedric style silver pauldrons and the robe was worn open, revealing a blood red Tunic underneath. The projection wore black pants and Daedric greaves and his hands were covered with heavy Daedric gauntlets. On one side Raiden has a single Black Katana and on the other a Dagger, not unlike the Blade of Woe presented to each member of the Brotherhood at their initiation. "We know that normally Sithis can't operate quietly on Earth without us finding him for the sheer amount of magic he exudes. The environmental signs are too obvious. We suspect the same is true for all of the Gods who can freely manifest on Earth, though its possible they have some way of restraining there powers to prevent unnecessary influence, as we potentially saw in new york." He paused before continuing on, "Well we detected a brief surge in energy in the States, during the negotiations for the treaty chartered by the Asgard, according to the Rumors Thor, Cronus, and Sithis, were all present."

Dumbledore nodded recognizing the names but also contemplating the information, "Concerning the Dark Brotherhood, would it be possible to have the Listener make contact with Harry?"  
Moody's eyes bulged, including the magical one. "ARE YOU BARMY?" He declared, "You actually want to ask a Listener of the Dark Brotherhood, a Listener who is arguably going to be amongst the strongest of the Death God's servants to actually ask the same god something."

The result of the killing curse had propelled Harry through time and space back to the days of the Ayelied millions of years into the past. In those years he had a great deal of time to build his Dark Brotherhood.

"It was just a question Alastor, relax old friend," Dumbledore replied eyes twinkling, so asking the Listener to contact Harry was out well that complicated things, "Perhaps contacting his alter ego Raiden we could ask the Japanese ministry," He suggested.

Moody grudgingly admitted to the rest of the Order that yes that might just be a slightly better idea.

-scene break-

The ninth ship of the class's name translated to Justice and Morality. Where the nineteenth of the Rashomon class was used to pioneer new technologies and design the latest warships, the ninth of the Rashomon class the Gi, named for one of the guiding virtues of the Samurai and by extension Raiden and the other Japanese cultured system lords' Jaffa, purpose was to build these warships. The Rashomon's numbers had never been intended to be obvious about their purpose, in fact it had changed over time.

Even now the giant Rashomon class ship docks were working on building Gondwana class super carriers, which though almost equal in length to the Shinku Rai Tatsu class carried three times the number of mobiles suits. That was some six hundred as opposed to the two hundred carried aboard the more heavily armed battleships.

The Gondwana were expressly designed as carriers and lacked the vast arsenal of heavy weaponry that the Shinku Rai Tatsu's possessed in abundance, not to say the ships were lame targets quite the opposite, the Gondwana possessed powerful shields which would hold under even a sustained Asgard attack at bay for a time, and while the ship lacked the powerful positron weapons the Supercarrier was armed with a massive amount of missiles as well as cannons.

The design was complete, a Battleship, which surpassed even the large Kite shaped Peacemillion, which was three thousand meters in length. The Peacemillion's nearest competitor previous had been the twenty eight hundred meter Granshiro battleship at least four hundred meters longer than the Alteran Aurora class used during the last attempt by the Alteran to rebuild their empire.

The new ship would be eleven hundred meters longer than the an Aurora, making it some thirty five hundred meters in length, it would carry detachments of mobile suits exceeding that of the Peacemillion by some thousand suits, the ship would be outfitted with an improved and larger version of the Shinku Rai Tatsu class's main cannon. Raiden glanced at the Stargate. "Libra. The scales of Judgment." He murmured elated at the completion.

So it was to be the name of the new ship, after a moment he frowned he really needed to stop using Greek references lest certain subordinates egos get even larger than they already were. Even better his fellow goa'uld should adore the new ship class.

A war was approaching the galaxy, Anubis's return guaranteed that a conflict was going to occur. The system lords were not quite as stable as they had been since Ra had been slain by the Tauri and his power base broken, and with Anubis's return things were complicated.

Once upon a time Anubis had been apart of the same ambitious group as Raiden, which had evolved into the present coalition of system lords the Shinto Kami and Sokar belonged to. That had been long ago though before he had been exiled by the combined forces of Apophis, Ra, and Yu, with the later going so far as to attempt to kill him directly.

Yu was amongst the oldest of the System Lords and amongst the first to evolve to possess magic, true magic anyway. Most of the System Lords only claimed to be gods, but through magic and the appropriate rituals it was possible to actually become gods. Yu had been dangerous before then, but now he was even more so, luckily his patience was great usually.

There in was the problem with Anubis's return Yu was readying his forces for war against the former exile. Yu's curse had probably prevented Anubis from achieving true godhood due to the sheer power behind the old man's magic, but Raiden didn't thing this coming war would involve titanic battles of magic no that was something which would leave them to venerable to other factors.

Ships he would build, and he'd present Yu Huang Shang Ti with the Libra plans, Cronus, and Sokar as well, as well as Heru'ur. In a year he'd give them to the entirety of the system lords, those whose remained anyway. The foolish ones would try to replace their whole fleet with such monstrosities, and he'd laugh.

-scene break-

Chapter Conclusion

Helltanz's notes: .


	18. Chapter 18 Mutants?

Chapter 18

Lightning Fervor

Helltanz's notes: The last chapter was pretty important plot building, for the arc after the War with Anubis.

-Chapter begin–

Sithis hummed contentedly, all this around him was his. His fleet stood all around him, as he rested on his throne. Here above this little world. The mortals below at least recognized the massive fleets, what they were. It was a pointless show of force here, completely without purpose. Still here they were.

Seventeen thousand years ago, humph when the goa'uld had been fledgling bickering warlords even more divided than they had been. No that wasn't quite right, Sithis shrugged, knowing the fact was ultimately irrlevant but it had been some twenty four thousand years ago that Apep had assumed control. Apep who had been Ra's father, and then five thousand years later, roughly Anubis had first struck. They had driven him away in one of their few.

Apep, Sithis remembered him, the only decent goa'uld his brother Stendarr had once said those many thousands of years ago. Stendarr would know, the Aedra had been backing Apep, and then one of the Daedra had chosen to back Anubis. After that it had all went spiralling from there. It was quite understandable looking back how everything had played out.

Speaking of Stendarr the Aedra's fleet had joined them. It was pathetic grandstanding on everyone's parts. Still not bringing a fleet or bringing less of one was foolishness as well, and not worth the risks. All gleaming white, and glowing as they were. As things went of course one could hardly say they were utilitarian. Neither side cared, but one could see where ships had clearly originated, both Aedra and Daedra vessels originated from what originally had been Ayelied designs, back during the age of dreams. They still shared the influence of that common heritage.

Stenndarr's flagship, the only one Sithis particularly paid any attention to, was for humanity their glowing beacon of hope, the hammer of mankind, as it were. It was a bit of an eyesore. The wars in heaven had still managed to force some utilitarian principles onto both the Aedra and Daedra, but it didn't stop the Aedric ships from being cheerfully bright in color in the immeasurable void of space.

The discussions at Valar had been largely squandered, nothing of true significance had been achieved, but then rarely were such talks successful at anything than reaffirming the status quo of peace. Certainly the Status quo had had better decades, but certainly this hadn't been the worse that they'd seen.

Rather grumpily another of the Daedra spoke up, "Well we're all here, finally," He added the last bit rather testily.

Sithis ignored the clamoring from the others, the complaints were pointless, as were the rebuttals provided. It was true enough that there were places the collection gathered here would rather be, but then such was alwaays the case. He would be content to get this over and done with.

"Stendarr has freely admitted he to freeing the human wizard in the name of justice, he did not take efforts to hide his actions in this, as such was his perogative." That was not entirely true, Stendarra had chosen to be discreet, but then that was the Aedra. There real tangible advantage over the Daedra was that the entire whole could work together, as opposed to the fractured political factions of the Daedra

Hircine snorted, "And, what of the mortal wizard, nearly ever mewling human in the galaxy give prayers to Stendarr in some form or another, at some point or another" Also true, it made Stendarr amongst the strongest of the Aedra, and with Akatosh dead their leader figure more often than note.

"I've set him on his own way, and his own quest, to find answers to his own questions." Stendarr craned his head looking from each holographic Daedra projection to the next, "That brings us to the issues of the Goa'uld, whom should be our primary concern."

-scene break-

The second of the Rashomon class was dedicated to more sagely things that and magical training. It had turned out that the Jaffa had a natural talent for reading surface thoughts but for millennia this gift had gone unnurtured. These abilities proved a useful edge in edge in combat. Strictly speaking there just weren't enough magically talented Jaffa available to properly justify the effort... it was just a disappointment in population.

The ship contained several immense libraries cataloguing thousands of spells from numerous worlds and cultures. However for centuries, and centuries these spells had largely stacked up unusuable to anyone save to the small fraction of magic users within Raiden's empire.

Reading an old papryus was a reminder of simpler times before open war had broken out between the system lords, the scroll had been a gift from Sehkmet, if Raiden had remembered correctly. Who had been one of Ra's most loyal Lieutenants according to intelligence Ra had become exceedingly paranoid for a time around the rebellion of Earth, and Sehkmet had been exiled, supposedly for attempting to kill Ra, more than likely it was that Ra had attempted to kill Sehkmet, but the Papyrus was one in a set of several scrolls Raiden had which detailed Egyptian magic from the time. Of Egyptian magical society very little remained in this day and age. Only Ptah kept watch over the last remnants of the civilization, Sokar had had no patience for it, and Ra had been distrustful of magic.

Raiden was reading since he had free time, as a system lord it is not uncommon to accumulate a number of gifts, offerings, and other pleasant things. So many so it was not uncommon for a system lord to not even be aware of the contents of what he had simply because he hadn't gone through the various gifts.

Sehkmet though herself had been nonmagical had had a particular talent for genetic engineering, and had been greatly fond of wizards. A little too fond strictly speaking, all things considered.

Reports from earth had trickled in that some time after the Ra had abandoned Earth a Thanagarian ship had crashed on it, for a brief time bringing a new age of unity to the people. Even now the humans were clamoring all over North Africa looking for ruins, and technology. Yu considered it a foolish waste of time, given that all evidence indicated that the Tauri's search patterns were blind and were not likely to find anything of value, especially without sensors. At the same time the Tauri were picking over North Africa, their various nations were gathering as much refined material left over from the Thanagarian invasion. Obviously the Tauri hoped to salvage as much technology as possible, which was all things considered reasonable.

Raiden flicked the access control to the massive shutters covering the 'windows'. The massive armored plates rattled moving back to the side. Reports over Anubis's growing fleets was concerning, given the ancient technology involved. If that hadn't been bad enough news Sithis had warned that while indeed there was Daedric backing for Sokar, to borrow a Tauri colloquialism no shit, Anubis also enjoyed such support. It certainly explained Anubis's sudden massive rearmament program. Whoever was backing Anubis had either been doing it long enough that the exile had already completed his research, or that Anubis was being told specifically what to focus on.

Then there was the issue of Heru'ur and Cronus's various mobile armor programs to worry about.

-scene break-

Silence in space, that was all there was even aboard the shadowy vessel. The present Raiden had been by the melding of the original Goa'uld Raiden and a fragment of the soul of a being with countless names the wizards on Earth called him the boy who lived, but some and more across the galaxy, and beyond in some cases knew him by another name. Even with all his power he knew nothing about Harry Potter, knew nothing but faint rumors that he considered beneath his attention, after all surviving the curse merely hinted at divine intervention nothing particularly special. He wasn't aware that he was in fact 'the boy who lived', even though Dumbledore and Moody knew as did others.

Sithis sat in silence aboard the vessel in contemplation of recent events.

His plans were beginning to reach fruition though there were complications in any event he had already begun seeding agents who were not a part of the Brotherhood on Earth, and across countless other worlds.

However it was clearly not just his own plans that were coming together. Others were clearly settling into operation. Sirius Black was an excellent choice due to his heritage even if the Black Family hadn't been called by Mephala in recent mortal memory. Stendarr clearly had a goal in mind stealing him before Mephala could make the choice.

Sirius the falsely imprisoned wizard was useful potentially. Just as long ago another falsely imprisoned mortal had been in the slaying of not only Akatosh but Mehunes Dagon as well. The wizard was even now flitting about that little blue sphere on the occasional errand for Stendarr, he just needed to determine Stendarr's goal.

The gods were exceedingly complex entities or at least the Aedra and Daedra were. They were amongst the last of the Ayelied because after all they had been responsible for the destruction of the Ayelied's great empire. A destruction, which had ravaged the mortal plane and caused damage on a level beyond what could be seen with the eye or through the use of common scanners.

Destruction spanned the whole of the Ayelied's territories both in this galaxy and beyond and spilled into the dominions of the Alteran. Of course all that was in the past and didn't hint at the complexities of the gods who were responsible for the destruction.

The Aedra had originally set out to stop the Daedra, though the two factions of gods had quickly allied to fight the Ayelied who did not distinguish from Aedra and Daedra. This conflict had been the first War in Heaven, which had signaled the end of the Age of Dreams and the beginning of the Age of Myths. The two sides worked together again with a faction of both working alongside one another to drive the Alteran Republic to splinter and banish them nearly entirely from the Milky Way and then the gods had lashed out once this had been done against each other.

The Aedra and Daedra all knew each other, quite well even before they had ascended to their present status of godhood. It was amusing actually when one looked at it. Harry Potter had been raised by the Ayelied, the 'savior' of the Wizarding world had been the one responsible for the destruction of his adopted people. It had been his research, his hard work that was responsible for the ascension of the Daedra to godhood, and by proxy the rise of the Aedra.

Stendarr was amongst the most powerful of the Aedra. He was a god of men but more than that the 'younger brother' of Sithis, and the one being outside the Daedra that Harry Potter had allowed access to the information regarding becoming a god. The two had been raised in the same Ayelied household raised as brothers for as far as they both knew they were. Sithis the god of death was ultimately responsible for both Aedra and Daedra. He had his own agendas to pursue but as Death he was connected to everything.

The Aedra had and still were a force against any major change, a force of stasis, by contrast the Daedra were a force of change. Both sides were capable of immense patience and neither side were eager to start another war in Heaven any time soon. That wouldn't be necessary though as long as things went to plan. Sithis was moving agents around seeking to expand his influence without violating the delicate rules that both sides had bound themselves by in an attempt to stave off another War in Heaven and besides finding loopholes was the fun part of the game. He was hardly the only one expanding his envoys.

There was a Daedra backing the goa'uld Anubis, he needed to find out who. Emerald eyes glittered dangerously, and the game, he mused, is approaching its next round. Time was something that he had in great abundance, still there was a great deal of work to do on earth in the coming century, as well as in the universe at large. As it was he had a great things to do in that span of time. "Lucien you may dispatch who you like to deal with things," He ordered to the nearest listener who bowed. He needed answers, and the most direct was was typically the best. The listener departed leaving Sithis to his own affairs, and the collection of brotherhood officers.

The meeting with the others had been as a waste of time as usual. No one had admitted to backing Anubis, and then there had been the whole Gordannian discussion as well. Arkay had tabled a number of other issues as well, most critically the issues of Kandrakhar, and the portals forming on Earth. Kandrakhar's barrier was always the issue, Mehunes Dagon, and Akatosh were dead, and Kandrakhar's barrier had the power of them behind it. It was precisely the reason the realm existed still.

"I have the tasks for the rest of you," Sithis ordered shattering the silence, "There are things to do, Anubis skirts the rules of nonintervention by scavenging the Alterans ruins, the humans of Terra do the same."

-scene break-

The Ancient Construction Facility Bairn featured the many jutting towers rising from the central disk, but it was the Command tower, which was the tallest. It was here Raiden was observing things, the vast combination of different classes. Progress was slow the war had yet to begin save for a few minor border skirmishes, which were actually common amongst the System Lords even if they hadn't been on the brink of open war. For the time being the system lords were busy consolidating their territories in preparation for what was sure to not be an easy war.

Reports had indicated that Anubis had vastly improved the Close in Weapons Systems on his ships to try and counter the mobile suits, and mobile armors he had encountered. He had even gone so far as to begin developing a new type of Fighter, or deploying it, called the Moebius, which while no were near as effective as a Mobile Suit in combat brought the odds to Five Moebius needed to destroy a Ginn as opposed to the eight death gliders. For the moment it meant Heru'ur's new fighters, were a better model yet. Still the Mobile Armors were fast and quite maneuverable and their command variant a totally separate model called the Moebius Zero. As far as names went it was something which annoyed Raiden to no end but alas the name was not unfairly taken the Moebius Zero was vastly superior to its mass produced counterpart and in the hands of one of Anubis's Aces it could defeat even a group of mobile suits. Additionally the Moebius Zero was capable of traveling through the stargate. The appearance of these mobile armors had made it much easier to consolidate the territories, even with his lack of allies.

One of the Jaffa bowed to the system lord. "My lord there is an incoming transmission from Saki-sama."

"Main screen." The Shinto Kami commanded stepping away from the tower window, and taking the seat he had vacated several hours previously.

Saki's face appeared on the rippling three dimensional holographic projection, "Raiden-sama. The evolution activity I informed you of I believe you may wish to witness this." He announced presenting the data files in a two dimensional format for review in a large font.

"Prepare the Shinku Rai Tatsu for flight." The System lord ordered after he had finished reading through, this was interesting, very interesting. He stood up and was headed towards the transport beam.  
"Yes lord Raiden." A jaffa responded hastily speaking into the communications device on his throat.

The system lord pressed the command panel vanishing in a flash of light. He reappeared the Shinku Rai Tatsu, and moved to take his seat upon command dais surrounded by advanced controls of the warship. In a minute the dark red Battleship pulled away from the massive Alteran Construction facility at a genial pace after all there was no real need to rush at this particular time.

"My lord we are ready to jump inputting coordinates we will come out above the Hinotama research facility." They were fortunate, very much so that Raiden's domain was between Yu's territory, and the Tauri homeworld, and not vice versa.

The system lord nodded, "Make it so." With the order given the battleship moved forward accelerating and before the prow of the ship a hyperspace window opened.

-scene break-

The Shinku Rai Tatsu had not taken long at all to reach the entered coordinates given that its engines were on par with all but the more recent Asgard built had quickly moved to take up its customary position in high orbit over the Tauri's New York city.

"Receiving transmission," The jaffa announced, "main screen." He proclaimed from his console and transferred the incoming encrypted subspace communication to the forward central display of the ship's peltak.  
The leader of the Foot Clan's visage appeared on the screen. "My lord as instructed I have set up the appropriate surveillance devices over and around Bayville. My surveillance has thus yielded some impressive findings."

He paused before responding that certainly was interesting. "Ikazuchi will be accompanying me." He remarked before he vanished in a bolt of lightning.

Rin Ikazuchi was a Hok'tar, one of the few which Raiden oversaw creation of himself, which was exceptionally rare for this era given how busy the system lord had been over the last few centuries.

The teen was average height for a boy of fifteen summers, though as a Hok'tar could match the average adult Jaffa in martial combat, and was an exceptional pilot. "Lord Raiden I do not understand my presence in accompanying you."  
"Simple the possibility is we may need to send someone undercover," By we of course the system lord was referring to himself in the plural, but really it didn't matter that much. "I would rather avoid sending a shinobi or Ashrak." Just as Sithis would no doubt prefer to avoid dispatching on of his agents or the Dark Brotherhood.

Saki bowed formally. "Lord Raiden thank you for coming I have several files you should personally see as soon as you are prepared for such." Saki remarked activating a video projector. It was more primitive than the goa'uld technology the man had used earlier attached to one of the Tauri's 'modern computers'. "We will begin with what was the first incident." A computer readout appeared, which presented an exacting location, and time stamp. It read: Sol, Earth, North American continent, United States of America, New York, Bayville, Bayville High School Seven PM Eastern Standard Time.

Quite obviously these had been taken by observation drones equipped with stealth camouflage, that could be a potential problem if the SGC decided to enter the one of the various other Tauri organizations that were mucking about.

Interestingly the two humans the camera focused on were identified with the Goa'uld symbols for Hok'tar. Off to the side were a pair of student records listing their names, and various biological, and academic data courtesy of Tauri records. It would seem that 'Jean, and Scott' were attending a Bayville High football game. Jean was busy taking pictures while Scott was watching the game from the stands.

The drone took the time to alter its position. Raiden had never quite understood the interest of Football, then again he didn't quite understand the fascination with sports in general. The drone continued shifted as it showed 'Scott' focus in on another mutant, that the drone identified by the drone as Todd Tolansky, was busy picking pockets. Scott looked like he'd been moving to stop the smaller mutant, ended up getting there just in time to save 'Toad' from three football players who plan on beating him for stealing.

Strictly speaking it would have been an appropriate punishment, though Raiden did not quite understand why Saki was showing him this, and then Scott lost control of his powers after his glasses were knocked off. The ruby beam of energy caused an explosion.

The drone started gaining altitude, and that was when things got interesting. Two new mutants arrived identified as respectively Charles Francis Xavier, formerly US Army Major in genetics, biophysics, psychology, and anthropology, and an M.D. in psychiatry, and Ororo Munroe show up soon after to smooth things over.

It was the prior that Raiden was more concerned about. Xavier "adjusted" some thoughts and then headed off, the drone following, to the local train station to pick up yet another mutant identified as Kurt Wagner, who's come to join the school.

Footage from another drone cut in rather abruptly, as a second projector booted up and identified another pair of 'mutants' these in particular caused some pause for the system lord. Both drones showed a convergence on the mansion that Saki had shown him some time earlier, and the first drone took to floating outside a window, as the second projector shut off.

Doctor Xavier was taking the time to introduce Jean and Scott to Kurt, before talking to Scott about the explosion he caused at the high school with his powers, before taking the time to show Kurt to his room and gives him an images inducer to make him look human, Aurora Monroe dropped what she called an 'X-man' uniform off with Kurt as well.

What followed was a series of clips from the drones over the next two days primarily focusing on what appeared to be two seperate factions in the town. The leader of warn with a personal notification warning placed by the Dark Brotherhood, though no explanation as to why; typical as such was. There were also Brotherhood notifications on the two hok'tar that the second projector had shown footage for, again no reason given for the flagging.

The probes kept watch on both the school, and the mansion largely from the outside. Carefully watching as Xavier took the time to try and explain the Xmen concept to Toad, and Kurt. Both the mutants ended up running off, and Xavier took the time to welcome the mutant identified as James Logan Howlett home even as the drone flagged the latter mutant with a Dark Brotherhood warning designation.

Another drone this one at the high school recorded the principal freaks out about Toad running out on the X-Men. She threw him out of the office and then morphs into her true form. Magneto, id'ed by the sensors as Erik Magnus Lehnsherr, arrives and tells her not to be so hard on him, and to 'Remember this is only the beginning.' The projection ended displaying the various clips time frames. "So it appears we have to watch for other factions, and is there any indication of knowledge of the Stargate?" He knew that there were various Tauri intelligence agencies that were poking about as it was, which was sure to be problematic.

"No my lord, but given the abilities he has demonstrated it is possible," The Shredder remarked "Though at the same time give his ties with the US Military one would think they would have brought him in already if he did officially know."  
He nodded, that was true, "If he becomes a nuisance eliminate him." The system lord ordered icily the US Military had potential but having them bring a powerful Hok'tar psychic into their ranks would be too troublesome.

"As you wish." Saki once again activated the projector.

Again the drone's recorded superimposed the location. Sol, Earth, North American Continent, United States of America, New York, Northbrook, Pryde family household. Time of initial recording Four AM.

Xavier apparently had developed some kind of psychic amplifer which had used to detect mutant signatures. He had proclaimed that it was called Cerebro, which using it linked to computer networks seemed to function a effectively the same manner as the probe employed by the Shredder on behalf of the System Lord. Kitty Pryde was from Northbrook, and age 15.

The projection fast forwards to the next morning, with the grand arrival of Xavier and Jean in the Blackbird to see the young Hok'tar. The attempt appears largely fruitless. The projection switches to another probe, this one monitoring the manor.

At the mansion Logan catches Sabretooth's scent. He suits up and takes off after him on his cycle. He blazes by Scott and Kurt. The two younger mutants decide to follow after him.

Kurt and Scott, accompanied by the cloaked probe, track Wolverine to a parking garage. An all out brawl breaks out between Sabretooth and Logan. Sabretooth slams a car into Logan, and while he's got him pinned he says, "One shall fall by the other's hand."

Wolverine responds snarkily to the declaration that he didn't take Sabretooth as the philosophical type.

Scott blasts Sabretooth off of Wolverine, and Kurt tries to teleport in and help. Sabretooth is about to attack Kurt when Logan slams him into an elevator. Sabretooth quickly ran off. Wolverine tells Scott and Kurt to stay out of his battles.

The recording ended, and Saki spoke up. "The one that the doctor was attempting to talk to her ability involves molecular phasing, we monitored a disturbance at the high school, involving another mutant." He played the footage from the incident in question, and then clicked the stop key, "Our current indication is the mutant involved is probably affiliated with the principal."

Raiden frowned admittedly the power was replicatable not only with magic but technology as well. "Another useful ability," He paused, "though the evolution seems extremely random."

"We believe that this is because the mainstay of the Hok'tar are first generation," The shredder commented, "we believe after a few generations powers will stabilize and become hereditary not unlike our existing Hok'tar program."

He nodded, "I should hope so the chance of the Tauri wielding a bunch of Hok'tar with extremely random powers could lead to a great deal of problems." If the Tauri military began to deploy Hok'tars en masse against the system lords it would draw far too much attention from the goa'uld making it very difficult to defend the planet and enforce the protected planets treaty. Not with the goa'uld divided between burning the planet, and trying to take such valuable resources for themselves. Of course the chances of such occurring in the immediate future given the presence of the Hok'tar was unlikely at best. As it seemed the advanced humans… the 'mutants' as they called themselves were new for the most part, which raised questions.

They were not dissimilar to another who had existed during the Goa'uld occupation of Earth millennia prior, particularly in the case of Egypt. Earth really was quite fertile no wonder the ancients loved it so. As it stood though the diversity of sentient human life that this world possessed was both an asset and a potential bane should it draw the attention of others.

-Chapter Conclusion -

Helltanz's notes: This is another of the "weak" rewrites.


	19. Chapter 19

Chapter 19

Lightning Fervor

Helltanz's notes: Batman's assignment, cough babysitting cough, does actually play a relevant portion to the story, not in the current arc, but in the interlude between the Anubis conflict and what comes after.

Chapter begin

Saki nodded in agreement to the system lord's commentary. "Such would be very bad especially with the war brewing Anubis's only Hok'tar," To their knowledge at least, "are his own offspring," That was one subject Raiden really didn't want to touch on. "if the Tauri were to inadvertently provide Anubis with additional empowered help, or worse Baal were to gain the Hok'tar." Saki remarked leaving the statement to hand ominously in the air before activating the next recording.

Again the drone presented the location of the start of its observation in this case once again centering on the Xavier institute. Raiden's fingers tensed irritably, as he quirked an eyebrow at Saki, who gestured for him to wait and keep watching.

A 'ninja' was sneaking into the mansion, an act which caused the system lord to look on with some interest considering the prowess in stealth. Storm attacked him and ended up knocking him into the danger room. The ninja managed to take out some machinery before Xavier calls for him to stop. As it turns out the ninja proves to be in fact Wolverine giving a demonstration for the students. He tells Storm that the mansions defenses were too easily breached and they talk about ways to boost security.

Kitty asks if any one else if freaked out by the whole thing and Kurt ports over to try and cheer her up. Rather than reassuring her he ends up scaring her more and she phases away. Kurt is upset and Jean tells him just to give Kitty time. Xavier arrives and tells Scott to assemble the team to go after Rogue. The assembled team head out in the Blackbird.

During the flight Kitty talks to Jean about how she thinks Scott is so "together" and cute. Kurt overhears them and acts jealous. He 'ports out to the front of the Blackbird trying to show off. He loses his footing and 'ports back into the Blackbird but slams into Kitty. Xavier tells him that the plane is, obviously, no place to be goofing off, and that he scared Kitty. Kurt apologizes but Kitty tells him to stay away from her.

The slide ends.

As far as things went the place was concerning but as it stood there were more pressing issues. "Those claws are adimantium. I can understand the reason for the warning notification from the brotherhood," He commented with some disdain. Adamantium was unique in that gods were vunerable to it. "The others seem little better then petty children, with advanced powers. He may be interesting, discover what you can." By interesting he meant a prime candidate to recruiting into the Dark Brotherhood, and that was the problem clearly they knew of him, so the question was why had they not acted.  
"Yes my lord." Saki activated the projector again.

Storm is at a high school basketball game watching her nephew Evan play. The coach makes Pietro pass the ball to Evan and Evan makes the winning basket but gets knocked down. As he falls spikes grow out of his arms. He covers them and they disappear but not before Storm and Pietro both notice his power. Storm watches Pietro walk off the court.

Pietro and Evan argue in the locker room about who's the better ball player. Storm walks into the locker room and talks to Evan about his powers. Later at home she tries to talk him into coming to Xavier's school. He asks her to wait until the next morning before talking to his parents about it. Xavier contacts Storm and tells her Jean and Scott are coming to help. He also tells Storm that Cerebro picked up another mutant at the ball game.

The drone footage fast forwarded to the next day at school Evan finds out that his locker has been broken into again. Pietro comes along and offers to loan him money as bait to catch the thief. At home Jean, Scott and Storm talk with Evan's parents about Evan joining the X-Men.

Evan is rude, to Raiden's irritation, to them and takes off. He heads back to the school where he finds out that Pietro is really a mutant too. Pietro wrecks the lockers and leaves Evan to take the blame.

Everyone shows up at the jail to get Evan. Scott says that Xavier will use his influence to get him out if Evan will join the school. He agrees. Next morning at breakfast the X-Men talk about Evan wanting revenge. Magneto talks to Mystique about how they can get Pietro to join the Brotherhood. They arrange a basketball game between Bayville and Evan's old school.

Evan is training in the danger room with the other X-Men. Kitty ends the session to tell Evan that a last minute game has been scheduled and he's needed at school. Evan confronts Pietro and Jean and Scott show up to help. Pietro ends up wrecking Main Street. The three X-Men end up taking him down. Evan is cleared of the charges and Magneto shows up to break Pietro out of jail. Pietro agrees to join Magneto.

At the mansion the X-Men are hanging out in the pool. Kurt cannonballs in and knocks Kitty off of her float. Xavier talks to Evan about how they're happy to have him. Evan jumps in the pool, lands on Kitty's float and pops it with his spikes. Xavier tells Storm that Evan fits in just fine.

A frown crossed the system lord's face at Evan's power, "That looks a little to familiar." Raiden remarked, since it was quite similar to one of his own Hok'tar program's results. "Continue with your briefing, Saki." If this drew the attention of certain Goa'uld there would be problems.

Despite Earth gaining access to not only Gordannian and Thanagarian technology in recent months that would not help them. Both races in question were quite primitive in comparison to base goa'uld technology as far as weapons and shield technology went though with regards to hyperdrive they were a little further along, but that wasn't the point.

Point in case with regards to weapons was what the Gordanians called a cruiser specifically what they called a plasma cannon were strictly speaking the level of the weapons carried by Alkesh. A state of technological parity existed between the Thanagarians and the Gordanians and while their fighter craft could possible go toe to toe with the Death Gliders that remained in service with most system lords their capital ships would be sorely lacking if pitted against Ha'tak. Earth would be able to reverse engineer Thanagarian, and their mortal enemy's for that matter, technology but it would do them little good against a goa'uld force of Ha'tak, which was what they would face if the goa'uld became interested enough to act.  
"Yes Lord Raiden." The Shredder complied and again a probe displayed the location of the recording's started at the Bayville High School

Kurt, Scott, Jean, Evan and Kitty were occupied talking about going to Duncan Matthew's party. Everyone but Scott seemed quite eager to go to the party and while they try to talk him into it Evan steals and drinks everyone's milk. Scott says that it's just too dangerous for them to chance it; someone could get too close to Kurt and feel his fur. Kurt makes a remark about "chicks digging the fuzzy dude" and makes eyes at Kitty, the girl immediately takes off.

They continue to argue over the party and Kurt jumps onto the table and says it's time to "party, party, party". His tail pops out while he's dancing and Scott grabs it and yanks him off of the table, saying that it's exactly the sort of thing he's worried about.

Kurt and Scott really get mad at each other. Kurt says Scott needs to loosen up, Scott says Kurt needs to quit goofin'. Kurt ports away and lands on a pile of boxes in the basement in the process smashing his image inducer.

Rogue hears, and smells evident by her nose wrinkling, Kurt port in, and goes down to find out what she heard. Kurt runs into a back room to hide and finds a lab. He trips an alarm and the lab self-destructs. Rogue runs in to find out if he's okay, and when she's looking around she finds a gizmo that wasn't destroyed in the blast. Kurt tries to take it from her, and during the struggle she accidentally zaps him with it and he disappears. Kurt ends up trapped in "Middleverse" where he can sometimes see ghost like images of other students. Effectively the device trapped him out of phase with the usual reality inhabited by humans.

In the school parking lot, Toad is chasing a bug presumably to eat it given his appearance and powers. Mystique pulls in and runs over the bug to which toad Toad groans and complains"ah man, my lunch". Raven tells him if she finds one spot of slime on her new car that he'll be in permanent detention. He wanders away to find Rogue dumping the gizmo in a dumpster. He asks why she's so jumpy and she says there's one less X-Men to push them around. She tells him to leave the gizmo alone and walks off. He pulls it out and zaps the dumpster.

Jean and Scott are talking about how he handled the situation with Kurt. Two kids run out of the boys bathroom screaming about seeing a blue demon ghost. Scott tells Jean to contact Kurt and tell him to knock it off, but she can't find any trace of Kurt anywhere him being out of phase and all.

They run into the Blob and Avalanche. Scott asks what they've done to Kurt and when they don't tell him he jerks up Avalanche and slams him into the lockers. Blob pulls Scott off Lance and Jean and Lance face off. Mystique shows up to break them up and takes Jean and Scott to her office.

Kurt is freaking out in Middleverse trying to get free. Meanwhile Toad is already in her office, zapping every bit of furniture into the alternate phase of reality.

He jumps out of the window when he hears Mystique, Jean and Scott coming. She opens the door and runs back out again, screaming about her furniture. Jean and Scott wander to the window in time to see Toad zap the principal's car. When Kurt ports out of the way of the falling car in Middleverse, Jean and Scott see him for a split second in the office, due to the fact Kurt's teleportation causes him to travel between a separate phase of reality.

They put two and two together and the X-Men go after Toad. Kurt runs into Forge in Middleverse. Forge explains about how he created this "pocket dimension" which he's named middleverse and how he was trapped there back in the 70's. He creates another gadget that will allow Kurt to port back for a couple seconds to tell the others how to save them.

The X-Men catch Toad and ask about Kurt. Rogue shows up to tell them that she did something to Kurt. She takes them to the lab. Kitty and Evan study the gizmo and figure out that Kurt is trapped in a separate dimension. Scott wants to destroy it, but Forge tells Kurt if they do then the two of them will be trapped forever.

Cyclops gets ready to blast the gizmo to nothing and Kit asks why she can't just phase through it and quietly short it out. Spyke and Cyclops look at her like she has two heads and she says forget I said anything, and then mutters something about guys and explosions.

Kurt uses the gadget that Forge made for him and ports in to say "Reset. Don't..." before he disappears again. The X-Men thus forth proceed to argue over what he meant. Spyke still wants to destroy it, but Scott says he meant for them to reset it. Scott does precisely that, but Forge and Kurt need more power to be able to port back through the portal to get home. Kurt ports them to Raven's car.

Blob, Avalanche, and Toad show up looking for Rogue. Scott is surprised that Rogue is working for Mystique. Avalanche asks who's side she's on and Rogue says it's not my fight and leaves. The rest of the Hok'tar fight over the gizmo after she departs.

Jean and Scott put the Blob down. Avalanche knocks Kitty through a wall, but she phases back through and calls him a loser. Toad tries to get past Spyke and reach the gizmo, but Spyke puts up a wall of spikes and knocks him down.

Kurt and Forge use the battery from Raven's car and drive it right through the portal. They run over the gizmo smashing it and then straight into the Blob. The 'Brotherhood', Lance, Toad and Blob, take off since the gizmo is smashed. Rogue watches the X-Men and Forge leave the lab. Scott offers Forge a place at Xavier's, but he just wants to go home.

The file ends. "A pity the device was destroyed," Raiden remarked considering dimension technology was fairly advanced, and critical in most cases for superluminal travel. "though it is fortunate, this Forge person was trapped, for a long as he was his addition the Tauri Stargate Program, would be… annoying."  
"I doubt you will like this next file." States the Foot leader as the projector activated again.

The X-men were apparently infiltrating a base at night. Kitty and Spyke did their part of taking out the guards, who looked suspiciously like US military troops. Nightcrawler ports Cyclops into the base. Jean lowers them to hover over laser alarms crossing the floor. Cyclops and Nightcrawler are supposed to free Storm. They find her laying on the floor covered with a cloak and chained to a post. Scott blasts the chains. Jean is surprised by a guard and drops them. They fall to the floor and set off the alarms. Scott rushes over to Storm, but it turns out to be Rogue in disguise. She grabs him and absorbs his powers. Scott freaks out and stops the simulation. The base disappears, as the holograms dissolve, and Rogue shuts down and drops to the floor.

Xavier comes through Danger Room doors and tells Scott that he's never to stop simulation unless he's been hurt during the course of the simulation. Scott tells Xavier that Rogue was not supposed to be part of the simulation. Xavier said he added her as an element of surprise and that they have to get used to that during missions. He tells them the training session is over and that perhaps it was best to go to school.

The Projection shuts off. "That occurred this morning, master." The Shredder proclaimed, "it is thus why the recording covers a far shorter period of time than the others."

"Well that's rather interesting," He murmured, though it would have, in his opinion, made more sense to have 'Wolverine' teach them infiltration. "am I to understand such infiltration practices occur often?" The System Lord inquired to which the Shredder gave a nod of confirmation. "I may be paranoid but increase security on all installations in form our compatriots in the United States Navy to do the same." He'd chosen a more discreet, and reliable method than simple brainwashing. Raiden prized honest loyalty, valued duty and true dedication as the epitome of the samurai spirit.

The ties between the USN, and Raiden were in truth were a recent development, one  
"My lord, concerning the United States Military we have records indicating the fighting of Shinso during the Vietnam conflict," Raiden's eyes narrowed at the mention of the species in question. "I believe the information may be relevant to the search for locating the source of this continued infection. With your permission please allow me the task of compiling such data in order to secure this data and review."

The system lord frowned "How soon will you be able to complie this information and if it does prove to be of use in the search can you act on it?"  
"A few days before the next meeting with the Tauri." The Shredder proclaimed, "as to acting on the information it would be within my forces capacity though direct conflict would not bode well for my forces."

Whatever he was going to respond to the comment was cut off abruptly drawing the shredder's attention. All discussion of the Shinso menace collapsed in, as Raiden shook inhaling sharply, he grabbed his side and cradled keening to one side as he hit the ground with a thud. SIthis's soul began to push to the forefront as the foreign magic tugged at the Daedra. Raiden's eyes bled slightly shifting rapidly between black and normal.

"Master?" Saki was getting worried Raiden, future supreme ruler of the System lords, did not get dazed looks on his face and most certainly roll out of a chair.

Raiden supressed another series of dry heaves, as his eyes flashed. "Move Saki," He snapped at his retainer, even as the sky darkened. The pain was nigh unbearable, he could not even begin to consider what was the cause of this.

-scene break-

Chapter Conclusion

Helltanz's notes: Since I haven't gotten any votes as to the names for the two new Prometheus class vessels:  
Mnemosyne Titan who represented Memory

Crius represents the power of the Sea One vote (Mine obviously)

Tethys mother of the water deities

Oceanus Father of Rivers

Themis Represents law and justice

Eos goddess of the Dawn

Atlas Carries the heaven's on his shoulders

Epimetheus Titan who married Pandora One vote (Mine obviously)

Nereus wise old man of the Sea


	20. Chapter 20

Chapter 20

Lightning Fervor

Helltanz's notes: Thanks to all who reviewed.

-Chapter begin-

Elsewhere, though reasonably close from a relative perspective, energy curled and warped around his point of entry as the Daedric lord took full form and manifested into reality on the planet. The pain to Raiden had been unintentional, a side effect of the old magic involved in what was involved. Sithis sneered stepped to the edge of the overhang.

The shapeshifter, Mystique, attempted to drop a boulder on the other two mutants; Cyclops and Rouge, and the two of them end up falling into the river below. Scott managed to save them both from dropping over a waterfall by pulling them up onto a overhanging. It held for a minute before the rocks broke up, and Scott hit his head when they fell.

Rogue pushed herself up after the fall from the cave's underground stream. "Scott? Scott! Listen, just hang on, you're gonna be okay. You're gonna be..." Rouge took a look over edge. "Oh man! We're gonna die!"  
**"**Thanks for the pep talk. Rogue..." The glasses wearing mutant murmured as the other advanced human lifted his head up slightly. "Thanks. You saved my life."  
**"**I owed it to you. Mystique had me pretty mixed up." She commented, "Her minds a tortured mess, but I saw enough to know that you're not my enemy. I really thought that she cared about me." Scott passed out.

Mystique appeared on a ledge overhead. Energy distorted on the rock outcropping the two younger mutants occupied. Where Raiden favored the attire of his Japanese subjects the Daedric lord's attire was quite different from anything that would fit in around Earth, particularly modern Earth. It stood out, amongst mortals.

Rogue fell backwards, "Who are you?" She demanded, this was the last thing she need right now.

The dark god frowned in silent irritation before speaking. "You summoned me shouldn't you know my identity." He remarked surveying the young adult as he stepped forward, no it made since this was old magic. It was old magic that hadn't been used in ages, it made sense of course.

"Summon, what are you yapping about ya yahoo." She was angry, and upset, and not suited to dealing with this situation at the moment.

Sithis gave a sigh, "How do I put this, in simple terms I suppose I am at current you could interpret me as a divine Guardian of sorts, you asked for help I obliged."

"You're my Guardian Angel that's funny." She laughed slipping back and leaning against a rock, "so what are you going to magic up a fix for Scot, or something.

Sithis's power seeped off of him, and energy began to crackle ominously. Truthfully the ignorance, and the way she handled this annoyed him, but it couldn't be helped, He took a step forward, "Now is hardly the time for laughing,"

"Touché." Muttered Rouge.

Mystique morphed into a wolf and dropped down to the narrow rock bridge that Rogue and Scott had landed on. Sithis spared glanced at Mystique's wolf body, who bared her fangs at the god, "Pathetic insolence," He flicked his hand and dark energy lashed out from his fingers knocking the shape shifter into the mountain. "That should keep the shape shifter, busy long enough for us to converse."

"You mean talk? What here?" She questioned, the fact he had just blasted Mystique wasn't really an issue at the moment considering Rogue's present opinion of the shape shifter, "about what?"

He quirked an eyebrow, really the loss of culture amongst humans on this world shouldn't have been this bad there were only so many families after all. "For instance your name, perhaps where exactly I should move you," The dark god swung his hand around gesturing to their surroundings. "this place is not exactly suitable."

"My name is Rouge, yours?"

"I have many, in this though Sithis would be appropriate there is a truth in this situation. Though I am known by others," He paused considering things, yes she was knew to this, there was no point in wasting time with extraneous facts. Rouge rolled her eyes him, which he elected to ignore. "Shall we be going?"

"Yeah whatever." She muttered as he levitated Scott.

"Hey wait what are you doing, put me down." Rouge demanded angrily as he reached out for her. He questioned whether she could fly, "NO, but you I could accidentally drain your powers." Rouge protested taking another step back.

The daedric lord gave an amused laugh and poked Rouge's forehead with his forefinger. "Some amount of credit is deserved I think I am the god of the Void, and the other gods both Aedra and Daedra rose because of me. Now come I have annoying bureaucratic reports on my empire to read and listen to." Powerful daedric muscle tissue in his legs propelled them up to the upper portion of the ledge on the same level as the caves.

"So why are you helping me?" She asked, "Hey be careful with Scot, are you sure you should be moving him like that, he hit his head."

He raised an eyebrow, though it did make sense he supposed if she didn't know, "Old magic, a pact in blood, written and done as such in the ways older than all you know,"  
"A what?"  
"A Blood Pact," He repeated, "they come in varying forms, some are among men, some between men and god's, the pacts pass through bloodlines and are magically binding, in your case protection. I will disperse the storm." With regards to the pacts between the gods there were only so many out there and not many had been invoked in even his recent memory, which was saying something. He checked over the other human, a little magic seeped from his probing hand, and he'd be fine. His eyes didn't need to tell him he could feel the Aedra near, let them watch.

She didn't seem so sure, "Right."  
"You will no doubt provide amusing company." He remarked with some amusement, this was amusing let them watch, "Should you require my assistance in the future you need but ask, we are linked now little one." Yes, mused the Dread Father having an active blood pact on earth would be excellent for his plans. "Still I should think a proper introduction is appropriate I am the Dread Father Sithis eternal and immutable god of the void, I am the end of the cycle. I am he who touches all things, and the father of all." After all he was the god of Death and the one who bore responsibility for both the Aedra and Daedra ascending to godhood. "I reaffirm that your blood is under my protection to strike you is to strike at me and such crimes will not be tolerated." He stated brushing long pale fingers across her cheek as the winds came to be silent and the snow ceased. Sithis could feel the Aedra watching, and he relished it, "I bring change to the world through you, and your safety my obligation, let all the Aedra and Daedra see this, and know it well." Sithis counted, three, yes Tiber, Mara, and yes Stendarr was here ah. He considered introductions but shelved the idea.

Scott groaned as he started to regain consciousness.

"Okay whats that about?" It was really more of an exclamation than a true question but she did mean it, "Whats going on?"

Sithis smiled, "In due time, your safety I assure, for now thats enough." He knew that like most mortals she was inclined to disagree, but at the same time they did need to get her injured friend away from here.

-scene break-

For the flagship stargate team strictly speaking today was a rather bland day. Sure they'd been poking around ruins all day, Danny was really happy about that, but so far nobody had shot at them. "Any luck Danny, we're supposed to check back in in," Jack made a show of checking his watch. "Uh fifteen minutes, you know the General wants this wrapped up, and an explanation."  
"I think its referring to an energy source," Daniel responded looking slightly annoyed, but resigned at being rushed. Strictly speaking given that Jack did in fact read ancient it would have been nice for a little bit of help, but Jack was on overwatch looking out for Jaffa, or other interlopers. The System Lords had all really stepped up their game recently, which really had been to the detriment of everyone involved with the galaxy at large. He copied down another line of symbols. "And its very flowery,"

Jack snorted he already noticed that, "Yep totally zen, all the Universe is infinite, and the heart of the world stuff." He chipped in. "Any luck figuring out how to open the door?"

"I think I've got it, give me a few more minutes."  
The colonel shrugged, it wasn't like a few more minutes was going to make that big of a difference. "Will do Danny just remember we the Alpha site will be dialing in shortly, and we'll need to be in that main chamber to get a signal." The whole Alpha site was part of a new protocol for gate security, where contact with offworld teams would be run through assigned offworld sites like the Alpha, Beta, and the Omega Site.

The earth gate was mainly being used either to receive scheduled personel from those bases or sending personel or supplies to them now. The plan was to make the bases as self sufficient as possible, and to have them hold the mainstay of US starship building, and refit in the event of Earth getting invaded again.

Even with the drone though, which was boosting their radio signal to the other drone stationed by the Stargate the whole complex they were in had some kind of weird interference. Carter, and Daniel had agreed this was kind of like the ruins of the Crystal Skull aliens, minus the weird, and dangerous radiation. That was a rather nice change, now if only the freaking stone, or whatever the building was made out of could stop being so freaking warm it had to be like ninety five degrees in this place, and it was night time on the planet.

"Uh Jack its opening."  
The Colonel abruptly spun around as the stone work"Awww man damn it Daniel," Jack groaned leveling his gun, "Teal'c on me." As it turned out the chamber was pretty much empty, except for a pedestal. Jack lowered the gun, "Hey Daniel I take it this cube is supposed to be the Heart of the World," He commented reading the ancient dialect.

Daniel corrected him on some of the nuances of phrasing, "But yes this is it, its giving off low levels of energy readings, yeah we should definitely send pictures back to the SGC, and find out if we should move it back to another site." New SGC policy was to avoid taking new found alien artificats straight back to Earth.

-scene break-

For anyone else this would have been considered overly dramatic, but this was Alastor Moody, so while some considered his half between a stroke, and a conniption fit a bit excessive most at least paid attention. It'd taken several minutes for him to actually sit down even after Dumbledore had gotten in the room the auror had been hard enough to get to stop muttering.

Bill leaned back, "Mad Eye calm down," The cursebreaker said looking through his notes that he'd brought as usual for the order of the pheonix meetings. Bill had been going through every bit of resources he could get his hands on. Most of it had been related to background research about the Thanagarians, both in Ancient times, and what they had while on earth, but some of it had been focused on other focuses such as Japan.

Dumbledore took the time to settle in his chair, holding a folded, but otherwise crisp piece of muggle printer paper. "Good evening everyone," He announced holding up the piece of paper. "I know that Alastor has something important that he wishes to bring to the floor, so I shall naturally keep this short, but I am pleased to announced that I in point of fact have received a correspondence from Sirius. I think this is an important first step to bringing Sirius back into the fold after his long and unjust imprisonment by the ministry. Ah Alastor if you would,"

"He did it, he did it," Alastor was grumbling, and getting louder as he repeated himself, "HE DID IT," The auror practically shouted, "in front of three of the Holy Aedra in open sight on the mortal world. Merciful Stendarr, Mother Mara, and the Dragonborn Talos." The wizard declared, "Sithis stood there in snow and mountains, stopped the storm, and declared it."

This kind of rambling was out of character, whatever it was, Dumbledore took a minute and let the man continue on apparently in torn between aimless despair, or ranting, "Alastor get a hold of yourself, what has Sithis done?"  
"A pact," Moody looked down again, "A pact he invoked in front of Stendarr, Mara and Talos, in America," The Auror breathed in deeply, "I, this is not something to play around." Seeing the largely blank uncomprehending looks from the bulk of the wizards he exhaled, "These pacts are tied in blood between the gods and mortal houses. There are only so many of them, most inactive." Moody abruptly smashed his hand, "I can tell you each and every active Aedra pact on our world that can be talked about. In that region of the world there is one, in that same State as this." It was one of Arkay's pacts, not that that was all that important. What really mattered in this situation was just how problematic such a pact could be, and he didn't know how to convince them take this seriously... and...

Of course Albus's first question, "So would it be possible to meet or arange a meeting this person?"

-scene break-

The Tauri Alpha site was abuzz with activity. They'd finally relocated the gate deep inside the mountain.

"Greetings Master Bratac, welcome back to the Alpha Site," The leader of the SGC greeted jovial in tone and demeanor "we are about to launch the new Prometheus class vessels would you care to join us?" General Hammond inquired of the elderly jaffa.

The Former first prime gave the general a bow of respect, "I would be honored," He responded, "to witness the launch of your new warships, Hammond of Texas." He responded, he was not so keen on the naming of the Tauri vessels, but then it hardly seemed his place to voice such.

"Welcome Ladies and Gentlemen today we will be launching the newest ships in the Earth Defense fleet, today we launch the USAFS Crius and USAFS Epimetheus, the sister ships of the Prometheus.

The two Prometheus class ships began to hum as their engines came to life creating a feeling of resonance in the air from the distortion of gravity. Within moments the two ship rose off the ground slowly at first and then after a moment began to accelerate picking up speed as they departed the atmosphere.

"Everyone please follow me we will be transferring to the Liberty, to witness the new ships enter space, refreshments are prepared aboard that ship."

In orbit, Tauri Alpha site the personnel of the USAFS Liberty watched, and acknowledged the two Prometheus class vessels as they escaped the atmosphere. "Attention Liberty this is the Crius we are prepared for FTL Drive test, permission to get under way."

"Permission granted Colonel Webb," Hammond stated from the 'admiral's chair' of the Liberty. The Ha'tak since it had been claimed by the Tauri had undergone a severe refit of its bridge this involved lots of added electronics. "you are cleared to test Hyperspace engines."

A second voice this time from the second newly finished Prometheus class vessel's commander came over the sub space communication's speakers. "Liberty this is Epimetheus requesting clearance for Hyperdive test run."  
"Granted Colonel Conklin," Hammond stated from his chair "you are cleared for Hyperspace jump." He proclaimed to the younger earth native. Both ship powered up their hyperspace engines, as confirmed by the Ha'tak's enhanced sensor suite and accelerated forward before jumping to light speed.

Times were changing in the galaxy though the Tauri would no doubt be an emerging power ultimately they would never possess the numbers to destabilize the goa'uld by themselves. Of course the people behind the program assumed they were going to win, the fight against tyranny and for liberty and justice and apple pie et al.

Raiden and by proxy his allies and even all the Aedra and Daedra would allow them to meddle about as they wished because the Earth was a potential benefit. Earth would emerge as a small interstellar power in the coming years and hopefully one day exist as a buffer state pushing into space that didn't possess the Stargate and screening the races that lived there.

The Thanagarians inhabited that space and with the news about the hyperspace bypass being released to the public there were a great deal of people screaming for blood from the hawk people. Raiden wouldn't mind at all if Earth fought the Thanagarians for the goa'uld after all it would be less resources he had to allocate to the matter.

Sithis didn't care about the Thanagarians, so he was content if the humans of earth got their experience fighting them.

-scene break-

On Meridian the rebel leader Caleb and his best friend Aldarn, and second in command, narrowly escape being captured by the castle guards after a raid in the arsenal.

Phobos' second in command Cedric ordered that a search party be sent after the two fleeing criminals, but the rebel fugitives hop on a couple of Hoogongs, a native species which serves the same role as equestrians in old Europe, and managed to lose their pursuers.

The Rebellion was nothing more than a nuisance to Phobos. The rebellion would never be able to match his forces martially. That didn't even begin to take in to acount other considerations, like himself, or Cedric. After all not only was he powerful especially with regards to magic, he had cemented a blood pact with his godfather a pact which placed Meridian firmly within the dark god's sphere of influence. In the event the rebels ever did manage to become anything more than a simple nuisance they would be destroyed by the Dark Brotherhood. He knew this. He further knew that eventually one day Kandrakhar would be assaulted en masse by all the Gods, and the council destroyed.

For Cedric he knew well the blonde prince was not going to like this news that he had to report concerning the escape of the two rebels.

Kandrakar had begun to make its moves, namely the choosing of the next generation of guardians, which boded well for Phobos's plans, but could potentially irritate the dark god who was their patron. Phobos learning of the portal he discovered, well that would elate the prince, which was good news indeed.

Cedric wave his way past the guards, and into the throne room. Phobos was, not necessarily sulking, but he'd been rather cross for a while now. "What do you have to report Cedric?" Phobos demanded, "I should assume you didn't apprehend them." He noted, taking note of the distinct lack of prisoners in tow.

"The interlopers managed to get away from the Main Guard," He announced, of the kingdom who had been dispatched to apprehend them. "They fled into the mountains were the guards lost them. We believe they likely escaped into a portal we found in the area to Earth." He informed Phobos, "I have seen to it the Guards have been posted around the portal and -"

That was about as far as he got, which strictly speaking was rather impressive given Phobos's mood, "This is too important to leave to Guards." The prince snarled in response, the rebels had recently been stepping up their actions and with the threat of the guardians it was becoming quickly to be tiresome. "You will go to Earth yourself, find these rebels and drag them back here to face their judgement for their treason."

Cedric nodded and transformed into his snake-like form and immediately set off for the mountains, giving the terse reply that he would handle it himself. Phobos yelled, actually yelled, for him to hurry and deal with the problem before Sithis returned, and with good reason successful rebels reflected quite badly on the prince. Though strictly speaking Cedric considered such unnecessary given that the dread father rarely came personally to Meridian, he had too many other things to do. Through the portal was Heatherfield.  
Heatherfield was a small city by American standards. Truthfully it really more of a large town, with a population of maybe sixty thousand people tops. So certainly it was not a bustling metropolis, but it wasn't tiny either. Atop of one of the rooftops the Speaker responsible for this region of the continental administration zone for North America was perched. The man was accompanied by his Silencer and a small cluster of fellow brothers. "We should speak immediately with the others of the Black Hand," His Silencer advised.

It was a valid suggestion Sithis's orders had been clear. They were to do nothing yet, not even to seal the portal.

The Council of Kandrakar, it was a... No the group that the combined Aedra Daedra ranks all unilaterally despised and found to be something they found utterly distasteful and unworthy to exist was beginning to make its moves. The next generation of guardians for the planet earth had been chosen. They'd been warned about the shift in magical energy as well as the portal, and a mass of Dark Brotherhood agents had descended to watch, but not touch. Sithis had been exceptionally clear on this topic.

There were five girls, and one was the new girl in town. Even so she had bonded with the other four during the Sheffield Science Fair, and with good reason though none knew it yet. The same morning, Hay Lin had had a sneezing fit which alarmingly "trashed" her room, but her grandmother the former guardian Yan Lin had eluded all her questions and suggested instead that her granddaughter invite her friends for an after-school snack at the family restaurant, the Silver Dragon. Yan Lin had been under observation quietly for decades, by both sides; Aedra and Daedra.

Will, Irma, Taranee, Cornelia and Hay Lin were busy discussing their "unusual experiences" they'd been having lately, unknown to them to what waited in their future or regarding the dangers that lurked around the building.

"There is a veil," the former guardian told the new generation, "A powerful barrier that protects us from, protects Earth from the world Meridian,"She stated, focusing on drawing on her limited reserves of magic, she'd never been the strongest of the group, and demonstration unaided would be difficult. "It protects 'our world' from the wicked influence of Prince Phobos, the tyrant who has corrupted Meridian." It was a little white lie, the Veil was intended to isolate Phobos to prevent him from assaulting the worlds under the Council of Kandrakhar's domain. The Veil by segregating Meridian also prevented an invasion from Meridian, by forces that were hostile to the Council. That had never been the original point of the Veil though, the Veil was an external defense sheltering all the worlds from direct assault by those outside.

The Speaker flicked his hand back, gesturing for his men to back up, finally he nodded, "Go inform the other members of the Black Hand." No doubt that the Speaker already knew more than he did, but hearing directly from a god probably helped.  
-Chapter Conclusion -

Helltanz's notes:


	21. Chapter 21

Chapter 21

Lightning Fervor

Helltanz's notes: Sorry for the wait the first part still isn't the way I wanted it, but the stargate portion I liked.

-Chapter begin-

Most importantly, for all involved parties, Yan Lin explained to the five girls that they had a part to play in all this. They were meant to use their powers to repair the tears – called Portals – in the Veil, through which the evil menaces who controlled Meridian could come to earth to threaten the planet. To Irma was given the power over water; to Cornelia the power over earth; to Taranee the power over fire; and to Hay Lin the power over air.

The observing members of the Brotherhood's frowns deepened as they continued to watch, they knew what was next. As for Will, she was to be the leader of the group, uniting the other four girls, summoning and magnifying their powers with the Heart of Kandrakar. Yan Lin explained was a talisman that will was to be entrusted to her. It was the very heart of a world, it was what allowed them to transform into Guardians of the Veil. As the former Air Guardian of the generation before when she was their age, Yan Lin gingerly passed the Heart to Will, the duty onto the new generation, and its new Keeper. Conspicuously Yan Lin failed to explain Kandrakar or that the guardians are supposed to defend earth, but of course long had Kandrakar used Earth's guardians to enforce their wishes on the rest of the worlds who made up their 'domain'. Will, Irma, Cornelia, Taranee, Irma and Hay Lin, were understandably confused - and for some of the girls slightly disbelieving - about these revelations. The Dark Brotherhood members watched as the new guardians of earth made the decision to see for themselves and practice their powers in a secluded spot under a suspension bridge. Their choice for seclusion could have been better.

No sooner had Will lowered the Heart of Kandrakar onto her chest than did the girls transform, and make another startling discovery: as Guardians, they possessed wings and with them the ability to fly. The Brotherhood members around the suspension scattered safe in the assumption dispersed the new guardians would not likely recognize the effects of their chameleon effects of their magic. More experienced guardians with the power of the heart flowing they'd grow to recognize the tell tell subtle auras of magic.  
Under the suspension bridge, the Guardians were tentatively trying out their powers over earth, air, fire and water when a Portal opened up before them. For the brotherhood this precisely what they'd been trying to avoid. It'd been good fortune that the last portal they had found had not been used. It had been the hope that they could wait for a much stronger brotherhood commitment to properly watch for tears in the veil.

Out of it flying came the rebel leader Caleb, followed by a roaring Cedric. Phobos's lieutenant snarled, he'd been trouncing through the mountains for more than a day hunting the rebel scum. Not only had they ended, Caleb and his lieutenant, split up, and then that new portal had opened up just as he was nearly about to corner the little rebel bastard. Then they'd dropped into freaking Earth surrounded by not one but all five guardians. NOT AS PLANNED!.

For the Guardians this was a not a good first day on the job. Four of the girls leapt in an uncoordinated fashion into battle with Cedric, as Will fumbled with the Heart of Kandrakar, trying to seal the Portal and rescue the rebel leader.

One of the brotherhood's local slayers reached for his weapon, magic pulsed around his hand. The Speaker was on him before he moved, and smacked him hard. The slayer recoiled tumbling backwards, "Stay your hand," The speaker hissed.

The portal shuddered as the Heart glowed flashing with a rose colored. It was unfortunate Cedric who was not far behind the criminal managed to drag Caleb back at the last second and the Portal closed on both of them.

On top of another one of the nearby roof a figure dressed in black cloak with crimson line across it had observed the event. His annoyance had peaked on the matter of the Speaker of the realm having to actually order a junior member to back off. The figure smiled fangs peaking past his lips as he did so, his hand clenched. "Glorious Dread Father you will be most pleased by this," He whispered reverently, "All is as you have decreed the guardians of earth have been chosen and this day they have awakened their powers." He uttered into the void... and then the Speaker was in his face.

"What are you doing here?" Hissed the Speaker irritated at the intrusion, "I've no patience for you Crimson Scar,"  
The vampire shrugged, "Your irritation is noted brother, however we already converge," He remarked, "there is much to be done with the Guardians selected, and with their powers,"  
"We should keep an eye on them,"  
"Our Dread Father has yet made his plans clear to us, for now such is unnecessary."

– scene break-

For Heru'ur the last months had been delightful. He, and Cronus had been busy, the alliance with Olokun had also proved advantageous. Now they formed a powerful block of the system lords, there together they outnumbered the the whole of the system lord fleets. Hours ago this world had dared oppose him. Of course its minor underlord had been hideously unprepared for his assault. The goa'uld had opposed Heru'ur's fleet with outdated. This had been positively unworthy of his time.

The great conqueror had expected something more than the pathetic wrecks of cobbled together Type 1 Ha'tak, defending a lone old type 2. The only interesting thing had been the sixty or so Alkesh, and the hundreds of gliders. It had been to borrow a Tauri phrase a turkey shoot between his Cheop carriers anti aircraft guns, and his own fighters. His own new model type twos had lazily spread out taking their time to crush the enemy capital ships.

It had been such a completely disappointing victory he'd ordered all the enemy destroyed, but the wrecks left burning, well smoldering in orbit. All that truthfully mattered was that this was done, it'd been a decent enough test of his fighters. The mobile armors were heavy wings that frame wise were based similar on those of the Death Gliders, attached to a heavier triangular primary body. The new body, and wing was a further refinement from the advanced fighter he'd been developing. The new body, and wings were larger though, and pointedly incorporated newer heavier armaments.

These were the start of his own mobile armor program. Cronus had started his by starting from the Alkesh. The older goa'uld had focused on adding additional point defense cannons to them. "My lord we have secure the stargate,"  
Heru'ur was hardly surprised, while Cronus's new design was truly optimized for assaults on fortified positions. He waved the Jaffa off, with the stargate here he knew this was really over. He'd be able to go ahead and move his troops through the gate unimpeded.

"Forgive me my god," The Jaffa responded, "However we have found evidence our foe has been conspiring with the likes of the fell god Anubis." The jaffa announced bowing again.

The Avenger sat up, bolted upright at the statement, that had not been his assumption on coming here, and now his interest was once again peaked. He knew his priority should be able to speak with his allies, if Anubis was truly conspiring so near to their shared borders then they knew that the time was indeed finally drawing near. It had been what Heru'ur had been waiting for, finally a battle worthy of his skills, a war to shake the galaxy once again to its very core. A glorious battle awaited on the horizon, filled with honor to be claimed as they stood over the burning bodies of their enemies corpses. He stood up, a smile crossing his faces, and he swung a mail covered arm outwards, "Then ready the fleet, we will depart for the homeworld, we must prepare for the war to come." Soon, soon Anubis would plunge the galaxy into civil war, and Heru'ur would be waiting.

-scene break-  
In Meridian the first thing Cedric had reported to Phobos the existence of a new generation of Guardians. That was certainly the most critical piece of information he had possessed. "So the crystal has indeed passed to a new generation," Phobos murmured, as usual Sithis was right. Such was unsurprising, the prince mused before turning to face the rebel leader. "You will inform me the names of your fellow traitors." Phobos declared imperiously to his captive, and when Caleb refused to answer the annoyed prince has him thrown into the castle's oubliette, and stormed out.

Unnoticed the guard Vathek surreptitiously took the time to hide a key into the loaf bread which he droppe down the hole.  
For Phobos though there were other matters he had to deal with. Matters which had been brought to the ruler of Meridian's attention. "Prince Phobos," A guard began, "we have located a portal to the planet earth." He had already learned that the one in the mountain that Cedric had been originally been sent to search around had been close. It seemed that the Guardians were busy. He couldn't afford that

"Use it find and bring me this girl." Phobos swirled his hands and created an image of the keeper of the heart through the use of his own magic. "And do it before Sithis returns," It was simply Phobos overestimating his own importance. "I would like this matter solved before he returns." Unknown to the Prince, Sithis had already been informed of the situation at hand though for the time being he was more than content to simply sit back and watch the progression. So naturally when Will was, at Phobos's command, was successfully abducted from Earth and was brought before the brooding prince Sithis knew about. "Where is the Heart of Kandrakar?" the Prince demanded immediately. He was already envisioning what all possibilities he could use the Heart of Kandrkahar for.

So when her response ended up being, "I don't know."

Phobos lost it and tossed her into the Oubliette with his rebel captive, and once again stormed away to go and brood. He'd so hoped that he'd been able to utilize it, or if nothing else present it to Sithis. So he stormed out leaving his prisoners in the pit.

Will instantly recognized Caleb as she put it to him "that kid from yesterday". Caleb though well he was a bit taken aback by her non-Guardian appearance and responded with "where's her older sister." He paused before demanding, just as Phobos did, "Where is the Heart of Kandrakar?"

"I didn't exactly bring it?" she added a tad meekly.

As if on que the castle trembled. "What do you mean you didn't bring it? I need a rope and some kind of weapon and what do I get a red head with attitude-."  
"Hey buddy I'm a guardian of the veil." She retorted hotly, and sat back in the oubliette. The castle thundered again, and the door to the dungeon opened up.

Well on the plus side, Will though seeing that the other Guardians arrived. 'At least help was her,' The downside though was so were Phobos's guards.

Accompanying them was one irritated dark god.

Swathed in his usual attire Sithis turned to face Cedric, and he verbally let the senecshal have his well earned tongue lasshing. "You were beaten by a bunch amateurs, these children don't even know how to properly use there powers." the Daedric lord berated the blonde, who then waved his hand and blasted the Guardians into the dungeon's walls with magic wave a of concussive force.

Cornelia groaned pushing herself and tried to drop the ceiling on Sithis, though truthfully that was more out of instinct and anger rather than actual desire to kill the god. Sithis smiled whirling rifts in space, roaring voids devouring the pieces of stone and masonry. Irma thrust her hands out summoning as much fire as she could manage. The fire attack suffered the same counter as the voids rippled about snuffing the fire before it even got close.

"Uhm try and gang up on him." Will shouted in suggestion in desperation which merely caused the god to smirk in response, if this was the best Kandrakar could muster against him then his plans would be quite easy to enact. They didn't have experience, and yet the instinct.

Taranee and Hay Lin both attacked, only for their elements, water and wind, to reverse and attack the newly chosen guardians rather than the Dread Father, "I grow disinterested by this." He murmured before ramming his hand through Will's chest and ripped out the Heart of Kandrakar. "Revert." The dark god commanded magic pulsed through the air. He tilted his head in amusement as the Heart burned at his hand. He remembered Akatosh and Mehunes Dagon's death fondly.

All the Guardians changed back to their normal, human, forms, as did Cedric. The Guardians no longer able to fly quickly met everyone's best friend gravity and went crashing into the floor of the dungeon.

"Hey give that back." Will demanded amongst labored breaths, Sithis loosened his grip on her shoulder as she gripped the other one in pain. The guardians even in human form were quite a bit more durable than normal humans.

The dark god smiled, it took a strangeness for something to be both malevolent, and benevolent, "You mean this little one why of course." He commented dangling the Heart above the guardian. "You should learn to stay out of other peoples affairs, the problems of Meridian do not concern you little one. You have your own task and responsibility to address." Sithis stated.

"Phobos is a tyrant he's oppressing these people."  
He snorted, did she think such a silly arguments would sway him,"Perhaps you should read _the Prince_ little one. This is not your concern your world is in to much peril for you to concern yourself over this one." He turned his head in Caleb's direction, and uttered one word in the teen's direction. "Kamal." The rebel leader was thus frozen in a block of ice by the dark god's magic. "Now little one I think tis time you leave."

"My name isn't little one." Will growled angrily, even if on some level recognizing that it was the best idea for the inexperienced guardians seeing they were clearly outmatched.

He smiled with a great deal of condescension. "None the less it is time you should return to your own world, little one, and I would suggest not concerning yourself with Meridian." With a gesture he summoned the other four Guardians of Earth and then he sliced open a portal to earth. "Now time to show you home."

-scene break-

Stargate Command was busy, poking around the ancient ruins had been a welcome refresh, but as soon as they'd gotten back it'd been back to the grinder of finding out the latest of galactic politics. In this particular case it was the whole issue with the System Lords busy posturing. Jack crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against a wall, "So were getting a visit by the head snakes any reason why?" He inquired, personally he didn't like this idea especially with the way things were currently heating up between the snakes. War was coming that much was already clear.

"We're being greeted by the neutral portion of the System Lords," SG 1's archeologist and linguist stated, "not all of the System Lords, Jack."

The colonel snorted, "Oh that's much better Daniel." He remarked, "Lets just invite all the snakes over for tea instead." The last few months had utterly sucked due to the fallout from the Thanagarian invasion. "So is the freaking devil coming?" He asked.

"Sokar isn't part of this contingent," Daniel remarked.

Jack shrugged, "Get so no wonder Teal'c holed up in his room," If it was Cronus's faction showing up this was going to be another pain in the ass.

"Col. O'neill," Major Davis began, "I know how you feel but this meeting is diplomatic we need to actually hear what they say."

Whatever Jack was going to respond with was cut off Harriman clicked the intercom on, "Scheduled Off world activation. Incoming wormhole" Cronus and Her'ur step out of the gate.

"I still don't get how the devil is a member of the neutral contingent, anyway." Jack muttered. "I mean and then we've got Cronus the titan too,"

Hammond was already heading down into the gate chamber, "Welcome gentleman." General Hammond greeted to the two most powerful 'neutral' Goa'uld. Heru'ur and Cronus nodded in response semi polite greeting.

Jack spoke up before things could continue, "So what brings you folks to Earth?" He inquired his own typical way.

"As you are aware the other two factions of the System Lords are preparing to go to war," Cronus remarked, "the last time such an event was the war between Ra and Raiden, and even it will not compare to this war." that had been a few centuries, a minor conflict to intervene in Raiden, and Susanoo's conflict. That had been minor.  
Daniel frowned, "I didn't realize Ra and Raiden's fighting were so large." He remarked, "If they had such animosity towards each other one would think they would have moved against each other."  
"Both of them were very bitter enemies." Cronus stated, "Though the war never caused them to lose any of their original territories, Ra intervened to stop another conflict" The war in question had been large by Goa'uld standards during the Pax Re had basically amounted to a large super scale Trench War that ultimately ended in a stalemate. "Once Ra was able to briefly have a fleet enter Raiden's middle dominion, the fleet some forty Ha'tak were cut apart by a massive Space battle station in a matter of seconds."

Heru'ur nodded, in those days the System Lords had been largely peaceful, as it was he remembered those days. His father had started it to prevent a larger spiral. "The reason this war is not mentioned prominently in history and lore is because of the way it ended."  
Jack perked up immediately, "Well so what happened?" The colonel inquired. "Come on spill." He pressed the pale system lord.  
"Both Ra, and Raiden played back and forth for years, neither were pleased by the repeat." Cronus announced, "The Susanoo's cowardly attack failed. Despite being embittered rivals Ra would never condone such an attack."

The second system lord nodded in agreement, "Susanoo's move was a problem, these tactics are the reason why Raiden so loathes the Tok'ra. Raiden operates under a very strict moral principles." Cronus admitted, and there was the little fact that Raiden wanted Ra to die by his own forces, and then Susanoo had redoubled his effort.

"This war will be much worse Raiden and Anubis are far more dedicated to their rivalry," Cronus stated, it was rare for a system lord to get replaced by a non system lord so they all ended up knowing each other. "They may respect one another to extend common courtesy but they will not rest until they have reached a conclusion to this battle." Especially with Ra dead, he knew that. "Anubis's forces have grown strong, that cannot be denied, but it is likely Raiden will win, he has made far greater strides in recent times and he controls the coalition." He conceded, "Anubis's new weapons are strong against the traditional weapons but alas Raiden is much more flexible at best this will end with a stalemate, at worst Raiden will become the new supreme system lord."

"How is that bad again," Jack commented, as far as things went a snake was still a snake but as things did go Riaden was definitely preferable to the likes of Apophis or Anubis. "other then he's a cocky snake of course."

Cronus nodded, while he didn't particularly like the idea of anyone taking Ra's place Raiden was the better choice, at least over Anubis. "If Raiden is to assume control he would drastically change the workings of the power balance, the war is likely to be divided to be separated by forces Raiden will fight Anubis." He announced, though that much was obvious. "His vassals will likely for the most part attack the flank territories while Osiris and Thoth do the same in Anubis's services. And there are many of the minor Goa'uld supporting each side. And the other system lords amongst each alliance will fight an opposing member of defend the allying territories." The system lord frowned, "Suffice to say though Yu is most likely to press his vendetta against Anubis,"

"This conflict will be much more expansive this will mark the first major inter System lord war in millennia. Each side has several System Lords though you are familiar with Raiden's allies, and Anubis has accumulated much of the power of many smaller Goa'uld rivaling the combined might of two to three system lords without his improvements. These upgrades makes his ships much more dangerous."

It was Carter's turn to perk up, "But aren't Raiden's warships much more dangerous?" Carter inquired, the understanding was that was the specialization.

Cronus nodded, rather pleased at the situation. "Indeed Raiden's forces are more dangerous in one on one combat but it is far easier for Anubis to improve captured Ha'tak during a war."

"So Anubis's forces while inferior still have a quality all there owns by number." Jack pronounced paraphrasing the old soviet strategm, eliciting a nod of acknowledgement from both system lords. "And as it was Anubis doesn't have the numbers?"  
"Correct," Heru'ur added, "That is why this is has our attention."

– Chapter conclusion -

Helltanz's notes: The station is obviously a Rashomon class vessel.


	22. Chapter 22

Chapter 22

Lightning Fervor

Helltanz's notes: Any way to elaborate this chapter takes place around the beginning of Season 7 of stargate. A small note I'm operating on what was cannon before Moebius's time travel episode, Continuum was a piece of shit we're ignoring it just like it ignored what was already established cannon.

-Chapter begin-

War had indeed begun as expected amongst the forces of the system lords. "Prepare to launch 4-MVF-M15B Muramasas." Raiden ordered rattling off the phrasing with minimal effort, truthfully edetic memory and thousands of years of giving orders in the midst of fleet battles helped. Thousands of years ago had Ra not gone ahead during the great war against Anubis, combining his power with Apophis and Cronus along with their other allies it might have been possible to achieve Coalition dominance over the system lords. Such things were in the past now, long gone.

Ra was no longer an issue, and centuries of work were now bearing fruit. Sokar was sitting out this conflict, for now at least, which meant that Anubis and his allies were the ones fighting against the other Coalition members. Long ago they had all been allies a massive base which dwarfed even Ra and his allies power when combined. LIke such groups eventually there had been a fracture in the ranks, and it'd torn the alliance apart, Sokar had gone and found religion, and Anubis had just gotten overly ambitious. Then the war started, and the remaining members had waited too long and Ra had struck first mustering the ranks of the lesser system lords to attack Anubis and force him back, and then Sokar had screwed up after that.

All that was long ago now Anubis was back and their Coalition, now the strongest of the Goa'uld System Lord groups, was going to war against its former members. It was an irony, that it was. Numerically though it was funny with Heru'ur, and Sokar sitting out the majority of the system lords ships were not in the war that would tear the galaxy apart.

One of the fighter command officers nodded and gave the order as the Shinku Rai Tatsu delivered a salvo of Positron blasts causing two of Anubis's Ha'tak to explode violently. Another of the officers spoke up drawing the Shinto kami's attention. "Lord Yu's Daos," those were Yu's entry into developing his own mobile weapons, personally he thought Yu, and engineers should have stuck to ship design. "are attempting to hold off a Moebius squadron."

"Redirect a squadron of Murasames from the Karin to defend them," Murmured the system lord, "Transfer two our Ha'tak to that region to assist." As far as things went Yu had done a great deal but right now he simply didn't have the numbers, of either trained pilots, or actual mobile suits, or the support base to field mobile suits en masse especially against a couple hundred moebius mobile armors. That was precisely what Anubis had thrown at them.

While both new weapons required different hangars than the old and inefficient death gliders, which had been the stable of the Goa'uld fighter patrols for millennia, Anubis's mobile armors were vastly easier to produce and the hangars were far less complex. Their controls, as Raiden could personally attest too, were vastly simpler.

The officer bowed, "It will be as you command."

Two of the massive super Ha'tak appeared from hyperspace. The large multi kilometer vessel were escorted by fourteen type threes. The reinforcement arrival contribution to the battle formed up into their own battle line and each Ha'tak released a number of Mobile suits or wave of older Death Gliders. The Death Gliders weren't likely to be useful for anything other than support. Then again it was the best even the majority of Raiden's underlords could manage.

"Lord Raiden we are detecting a cloaked Tau'ri cruiser observing the battle."

He wasn't particularly interested in such, as Anubis's ships continued their counterbattery fire against his second line, "Ignore it for now." The system lord ordered, if the Tauri wished to watch their gods do battle then let them, Anubis seemed to have issued similar orders, or the the other system lord was too occupied with this irritable stalemate.

"As you command."

Raiden watched the battle progress, this was the first major engagement between the two forces. Intelligence indicated while Anubis had been on modernization, the installation of ancient derived upgrades on Ha'tak, his real expansion of infrastructure had been to a new design of ships, and the moebius designs. He'd been doing this since he'd returned. The simplicity of the moebius design meant he'd nearly completely phased out the Death Glider in both his fleet, and his ground installations, as well as with Baal's own forces, and even a sizable chunk of his underlords. It was a stunning accomplishment.

This battle was that which meant the war had now truly begun the majority of the allied Contingent. Through information passed on by his own order, the majority of the major alliance members were well on their way to developing Mobile suits. Even some of his underlords had joined in proposing their own designs to complement their rebuilt fleets.

The massive forms of the kite shaped Peacemillions appeared releasing a massive salvo of missiles devastating a wing of Moebius of significant size. Anubis unfortunately could replace the vessels easily even that large number.

The red and white colored forms of Hinotama model Mobile Suits soared through space along side its fellow phase three compatriots, as well as the new Phase Four models that were just entering combat. The Phase three's were able to easily overwhelm the technologically inferior Mobile armors, needless to say the Phase fours had an even easier time destroying Anubis's fighters, unfortunately numerically they were still drastically smaller than those weapons.

His communications officer perked, "My lord the enemy prepares to flee," Anubis's commander had by now deemed the battle a lost cause strictly speaking the order to withdraw was not a mistake. The truth was though Anubis's forces had still proven rather effective, leaving dozens of allied ships burning, while it was true the bulk of those were escorts, or aging Ha'tak they were still losses, to say nothing of the losses to the mobile suit corp.

Raiden looked through the summary of his looses irritation.

-scene break-

As far as the SGC was concerned that Raiden, and Yu had gone to war against Anubis, and Baal was good news. The Tok'ra and Jaffa were still split on the matter after the Alliance between the three factions had been terminated. The Jaffa liked the idea, for the most part, hoping that the two factions would weaken each other. The Tok'ra though were less optimistic.

Preliminary intelligence reports had indicated that right now initial confrontations had boiled down to both sides exchanging attacks. A general mobilization order had gone out through both alliances, it was the true sign war was starting. Soon then their underlords would be vying for their superiors' attention and throwing their fleets at the other sides borders. That would be where the bulk of the casualties would be, the armies of the actual system lords were better equipped and better trained. Once upon a time better equipped meant less, now though with both sides adopting better armor, and weapons that only improved the value of training.

To complicate matters here on earth there were the other agencies who were all still clamoring to try and get a piece of the Stargate Program. "Colonel Fury, this is General Hammond,"

The responsible officer for SHIELD, and his second in command both had Army dress blues on, which had stirred the old inter service rivalry pot on the way down. "Sir," Fury, and his second in command saluted, "Its come recently to SHIELD's attention that your command squad recently acquired what we know to be a tesseract." He handed a sealed folder marked classified on it to the warrant officer, who presented it to general Hammond. "Our former lead scientest recovered one several years ago during a recovery operation from a Nazi debris field," While searching for Captain Steve Rogers, "The notes contained in that file detail what little we have on the Nazi program which was used to use the Tesseracts power to travel to a world they called Heaven. Upon review of the data provided by the Joint service intelligence review briefing we have high expectations that the Stargate was what the Tesseract was powering. Our studies of the Tesseract that the Howard Stark, our point man on Science back then, and our copies of Nazi research tell the Tesseract is a powerful subspace nth dimensional power supply mechanism. It's litterally capable of supplying a massive amount of power."

The announcement touched off a string of blathering from there was very little that really was known definitively about the Stargate up until it'd been brought out of storage. It'd been discovered by the Expedition in Egypt, and then the US had gotten a hold of it in 1944. After the US had gotten a hold of it, and Ernest had gotten stranded the gate had been boxed up, and been left alone until the project had been reformed.

"Your saying there is already one of these?"  
"SHIELD's joint Project with DARPA is codenamed Project Pegasus is designed on back engineering Nazi technology they developed with the Tesseract, we believe such a pathway critical to fending off another alien invasion."

… That was right the president was discussing creation of a new command that would bear responsibility for planetary security. The plan was to place Stargate Command as a part of this chain of organizations.

-scene break-

Deep within the very heart of his demense, Vis Uban was Raiden's capital. The ancients were the original reasons that Raiden had colonized the world. Within a century of locating the planet he'd built it into the industrialized heart of his domain. It had been risky back then, but now such investments had clearly been rewarded a thousand fold. Only Yu's homeworld boasted more substantial metropolises than his own, even if rumor had been that Ra had secreted away planets that rivaled the Jade Emperor's core domain. Vis Uban was the ideal it was well defended while remaining perfectly comfortable and able to sustain any whim. It also served as a major training and building ground for Raiden's military.

Raiden's homeworld or his capital whichever title one preferred to attribute it was the remnant of ancients once great empire, and a world off the usual goa'uld path.

The planet was covered in large forest Parks with the primary continent housing nine large cities. The definition of large cities in this case were roughly the size of the Rashomon class, with the ninth and final one being twice that size, of course the cities also were responsible for ship building and other Industrial activities, of course the planet was much larger than that of Earth. To be specific about 2.4 times earth's size

The Cities were a mix of metal industrial facilities and traditional residential divisions. In orbit were four moons. Two of these, one with a luminescent rings, were comfortably inhabitable, while the other two were like earth's moons and were used to house construction facilities. They were accompanied in orbit by the multiple massive space stations, the only things capable of matching the Rashomon class in raw firepower, beside those defense stations there were numerous orbital shipyards and mining facilities. The mining facilities were remnants, and expansions on Ancient technology which mined the nearby asteroid belt. Those harvested resource could then in some cases be converted, and processed to build defense facilities.

The cityscape, of all of them really, of the Capital resembled Earth's skyscrapers, except for two facts many were much larger and the city had changed in many centuries, in fact the cities last major change, in architecture, was more than two thousand years previous. New buildings were obviously add, and of course maintenance was done far more frequently.

The Orbital facilities were generally reserved for use by the core worlds of Raiden's dominion, the Solar system the Bairn was present in was among them. Each system they were outfitted with numerous and varied, and very much lethal weapons, much like Raiden's jaffa or his ships for that matter. That was actually what was coming to become a problem, and had stymied his advance.

Raiden observed the workings of the control center, the Tok'ra thought they were so smart. They such annoying scum, the only reason that Raiden hadn't let the other System Lords in on the Tok'ra tracking devices was because he could track it as well, with a little help.  
The command center operated in much the same as Asgard monitoring equipment that Anubis was now rumored to have access to. Whether that was truth or not hardly mattered given both he and Anubis used systems based on Ancient technology. The system transmitted real time information detailing the movements of ships across the entire galaxy. With this advanced system in combination with the Tok'ra tags Raiden could monitor and coordinate numerous pinpoint strikes against the middle zone.

The central region of Goa'uld space. Right now that was currently the main target of two of the three major system lord factions. This area was a key asset and needed to be controlled before Raiden could either A force Anubis to capitulate or B simply seize Anubis's territory by force. As things went B was the more likely choice as Anubis was not likely simply surrender to his former allies.

Unfortunately both would be costly when it came to resources. That was of course the reason that major wars between the system lords were rare they were expensive. It would also take years of war without a major decisive victory, and even the subjugation of Anubis's worlds would take a generation, or a thorough burning from orbit. All that would remain after would be the formation of a new High Council of System Lords.

The System lords would extend their dominance to the rest of Galaxy, with the exception of certain planets certain worlds were far too much trouble to bother with or were protected by the Asgard or another likewise powerful race. Once this war was done it would take time to rebuild things as he liked but after all he had time.

The main purpose of this non total conquest was not to draw the attention of Sithis's old comrades the other Daedric lords. It was true that though Sithis was easily more powerful than all of them combined, for a combined number of reasons, that one would not want to know, and had the support of Mephala and Malacath amongst others.

Neutral agreements existed with Hermaeus Mora, who actually just sat around and watched what happened, and Namira, who was content to live among her precious defamed, would keep them from interfering.

Additionally since Mehunes Dagon was dead, thankfully taking that pesky Akatosh with him, though to be accurate the Daedric god would concede Akatosh had decided to go suicidal as it were.

The others would act, as they liked, not bound by any such pacts. It simply wasn't worth it to risk a war, better to simply not have any thing to do with them and all the while let them deal with the Aedra. Raiden frowned. Both groups were one short now, with the aforementioned deaths of Akatosh and Mehunes Dagon.

Both Sokar and Raiden were glancing at the screens, yes, all was going according to plan. For Sokar he considered that Mephala truly was a wonderful strategist, she had plotted and planned assisting was what she did best after all.

As it stood Anubis would launch his first renewed offensive, if troop movements within his territories were anything to go by. He was still likely on a fool's errand looking for the six eyes,why he wanted them exactly Raiden was unsure but it couldn't be good. In any event it hardly mattered. He knew they were ancient artifacts, systems of some sort but even if he knew what they did tracking down all six seemed ludicrous.

-scene break-

Sithis knew his compatriots would, both Aedra and Daedra, would become aware of his actions and take steps to advance their own plans. Such was fine after all that was what he wanted them to. The choosing of the Guardians had been one thing, but an open invitation to take time on earth that was something else. Stendarr would certainly watch when he could, Arkay as well just because he would have his own pact member so close.

For some reason the immense civilization which had predated the earliest 'Ancient', i.e. the Ayelied, Ori and Alteran civilizations, had all suffered serious cataclysms and no one could really explain why and this had continued striking the early 'Ancient' civilizations, and it intrigued him. It always ahd. If such destruction had been internal strife more would have survived even with the immense power that those civilizations had at their disposal no something else something external must have involved to some extent. Then again he remembered how the Alterans when they had gone to Pegasus. It had been there that they had created the Wraith, Lilith's work, and that had lead to their downfall.

His plans were now beginning to bear fruit in any event things were coming along quite nicely despite some minor issues, the only real threat was if the Aedra decided to unify thoroughly and attack, though admittedly the Alteran Ascended would also be a short term nuisance as well. Of course the Alteran were now merely a nuisance that continued to exist but no longer, due to their choice to abandon the material world, a real threat. No it was the hybrids that remained in the other galaxy that truly posed the only remaining problem.

In any event Sithis had other matters to address, it was a pity he hadn't been asked to destroy the Thanagarians as that would be useful to furthering his plans, but the Dark Knight's assigned task would be more than sufficient to furthering them. Let him try and puzzle out what the Dread Father hoped to accomplish it hardly mattered.

Kandrakar was the real issue now that Earth had guardians again, well he could begin the next phase of subverting the planet to his goals. He'd no interest in open subjugation, and conquest of earth. There was also of course deploying the Dark Brotherhood en masse was certain to draw the attention of the others, which was why he needed Kandrakar to fire the first 'shot' in the war. He needed something to provoke the other Daedra, and Aedra, and weaken the Realm's defenses, weaken the veil enough for his plan.

The matter of an active blood pact also was going to prove extremely useful. "Yes, things have become interesting," He murmured, events were at present in his favor and the only other known threat that could match the daedric lord, the Ori, were too far away to do anything without being seen 'A mile off'.

-Chapter Conclusion -

Helltanz's Notes: -


	23. Chapter 23

Chapter 23

Lightning Fervor

Helltanz's notes:

– Chapter begin-

Located at the very heart of Raiden's territory's inner rim, Vis Uban was a magneficent world. He brought his underlords here frequently to remind them of that, or to bring independents to his side.

Raiden looked over the data that lay in front of the system lord, obvious it was impractical to upgrade or replace every single unit, more to the point it was impractical to implement such things for mass produced units. He'd begun to realize this, simply put his logistics were lagging behind those of Yu Huang Shang Ti, and Anubis, slowing his war machine.

This particular piece of technology was too valuable to ignore. Equipped to Ace, commander, Elite, whatever one wished to call them on the other hand it was another story. Some units were replaced in completely by units of the same design and designated improvements, an example of this the Gat X series Command units all were receiving successors baring their names. As it was if he kept implementing these changes he would merely be worsening his logistics issues, but at the same time he was still considering.

There were other Mobile Suits, developed from the same programs, receiving more drastic updates saw more significant changes to their names and fields. Amongst the names presented by the data screen were the 3-ZGMF- X09a Justice, 3-ZGMF- X10a Freedom, 3-ZGMF- X13a Providence, would be replaced by the 4- ZGMF- X19a Infinite Justice, 4-ZGMF- X20a Strike Freedom, and 4-ZGMF- X23a Providence Legend respectively.

Other machines had also underwent changes, Raiden had once used a type Zero, which was replaced by the unit's successor which was a first version upgrade, as such the models only had their name changed with the added designation of R and change in Identification Code to the end, these units both the original Zero, and the R, were the only units capable of matching the higher grade units, this was at a price no normal person could handle the strain, the Zero R was to be succeeded by the Fervor. Though that machine's IDC was yet to be chosen, pending its completion, the Fervor was schedule to be the first phase 6 command unit.

This was not to say certain older unit had successors baring their name, 1-AMF-101 DINN and 3-AMA-953 BABI, both were being improved and would be succeeded by the 4-AMF-102 DINN II and 4-AMA-954 BABI II. Similar redesigns were also being done for Taurus, though the Taurus could in some sense like the CGUE and GuAIZ could be considered the midway between Ace and mass production, and the Virgo mobile suit series among other mass produced units.

Raiden read over the file again confirming that things were going ahead as scheduled. In the air some eighteen thousand ninety meters in the air a prototype phase five Mobile Suit easily evaded the fire of its tester units. This was progress, but at the same time it would also complicate his logistics further, delaying or straining any plans to assault Anubis's position.

It was expected Anubis was doing the same for his mobile armor and would field better units, quantity wouldn't win if the quality of the enemy unit was so much more advanced if a single unit could eliminate an entire wing of squadrons in a matter of seconds.

So far the only main battle type phase fours were the Muramasas and the DOM, the Gat division had yet to come up with a mass production unit for Raiden's forces. Only Artemis had actually gotten anywhere with standarization. She had tasked the GAT design bureau to build a replacement for the older Leo, which had also seen upgrades into the 3-MFBMS-01 Leo II, the 4-Gat-07 Hyperion was leap from the old Leo design, the Hyperion was more in line with the principle of the CGUE, a half way between ace and mass production unit. Personally Raiden suspected the design was more a matter of pride the Hyperion was armed with a mobile suit version of the umbrella of Artemis.

He watched the latest report from the Hinotama facility on Mars, as it was things were going to come to a head eventually likely in dealing with the Tauri. Raiden actually expected Anubis to try and access Atlantis. Prior to the war with Ra and well before Anubis's split with the System lords it had been a mutual research project. It had been after the war and aforementioned schism information had revealed the city could only be accessed by an earth Stargate.

Unfortunately with his limited sustainable power projection capacity it was at a rather bad time so as of yet Raiden had yet to acquire the time to deal with the problem. None the less Atlantis was something Raiden fully intended to rub the in Anubis's face. It was a small matter of pride. Atlantis though could be accessed via ship if one wanted to take an extragalactic excursion but it wasn't really worth it.

If he did provoke Anubis to attacking Earth well Anubis's assault on Earth would give him the necessary situation to put a large fleet in orbit and run detailed scans to detect any ancient outpost on the planet with out looking suspicious to the Asgard.

Ra's demise while beneficial had also been troublesome to say the least; it had completely thrown the system lords into disarray, each member swiftly moved and minor Goa'uld attempted to make a name for themselves. It'd derailed his plans entirely for a build up, and to be truthful part of that had been the decision to invade Susanoo as soon as the opportunity presented itself.

Raiden's incursion to Abydos had been for treasure hunting, quite frankly Ra was an idiot, albeit and idiot who had top notch survival skills. After all not many could claim to be a member of the system lords continuously for as long as he had, but an idiot the amount of technological artifacts left over that he had for no other reason but for aesthetic purposes was aggravating.

Raiden took the time to activate the projectors. Yu's assault was keeping Anubis focused, and Yu's underlords, particularly Guan Yu could hold the rear lines for some time. Now was the ideal time to go ahead and commit to a restructuring before they were too extended. Anubis was also consolidating, so neither side was suited to a full scale invasion just yet. Baal though, he could afford to commit to a full assault, and then there was the issue of the Kull warriors to deal with. The tauri solution was one option.

-scene break-

On Earth Bruce Wayne was amongst the richest men on the planet, and right now he was about to go completely off the wall. Organizing the expanded league had been a massive undertaking. Taking steps to make the league as international as possible had been the main thing, but the truth was the first world contribution was significantly larger, yes, but it also brought a substantial technological expertise to the group. Right now though there were serious discussions to creating smaller teams comprised of sidekicks, and form sidekicks to deal with smaller threats. That was what they were talking about signing Galatea up for, even though Supergirl was also, if technically a junior, member of the league. Sithis seemed pleased to turn Wayne manor into some kind of orphanage for the handful super powered kids. Diana had taken the opportunity to move in, he'd been against it at first, and while it had caused some problems there were benefits to it as well.

Luthor was out of prison again, which was bound to be an issue. They even had information that he was busy discussing things with Cadmus. The US Government's new homeworld defense program that all the politicians were pushing for was moving forward calling in plenty of the major corporations, LexCorp, as well as OsCorp included amongst the already signed on Stark and Wayne Industies. Stark Industries had offered Steel a job recently, as had SHIELD.

SHIELD had been added to the organizations under the new program's leadership, they and the Navy were working on a new heavy air vehicle apparently a flying carrier. It was possible the new ships would be using Thanagarian technology, but most evidence seemed to hold it was largely earth built. The carrier was one thing, the way the government was recruiting people was something else entirely.

"So whats the plan now?" Galatea demanded taking a seat in one of the free chairs of the batcave, "Still searching for tall dark and evil's minions." She meant Sithis, "Thought you were going to give that up after he showed up and dropped the runt off?"

Sithis was legitimately a concern, but all things considered, "Right now no," He was looking back at the latest Cadmus facility, front for Cadmus in Metropolis. They and Luthor were up to something, and as it was there was no available Intel, no available Intel wasn't good news.

The InterGang attack on a local SHIELD office also had his attention. The attack had been a failure. It'd taken SHIELD six hours for them to get a warrant to bust into Kord Industries. InterGang's operations in Gotham were dead in the water because of six hours of SHIELD getting a warrant. It was a take down that had considerably upset the FBI's organized crime taskforce. InterGang had been after something at the SHIELD Headquarters, they had known something was there, and SHIELD had not liked them knowing that. Whatever InterGang had been after had warranted a government agency to respond to resistance with heavy weapons. Batman didn't like this at all.

"I could always go in there,"  
"Not happening."

-scene break-

Sithis had been supplying the technology, and armaments for thousands of years as it was he had far more pressing matters than the squabbles of the goa'uld on his mind. There were vastly more pressing issues, "Tepes step forward."

"So what is the plan kill the mongrels, as usual," The vampire inquired smiling, displaying the long canines, "oh fearless god of death."

The dark god was not pleased, but another member of the brotherhood spoke, "You really do need to act more appropriately you are a Listener." the old woman chided, "Could you for once act like it?"

He frowned eying the vampire as he stepped directly into the light. The vampire flipped his air annoyingly. He was dressed in Victorian era fashion, blood red and white dominated his clothes color.

Where Raiden would normally have hit someone for that kind of insolent answer, Sithis, his other half knew unfortunately the vampire had a thing for pain. He leaned back comfortably. Tepes's work was flawless.

Tepes was a listener. The highest of the ranks in the Dark Brotherhood, whose authority came directly from the dark god himself. He was also responsible for a large portion of the Crimson Scar's activies on earth and more precisely to the Executioners attached to the sect, "So what is the plan oh exalted one?" He inquired.

"You are to go to England." The Dark God remarked, hopefully this wouldn't end up like the last time he had dispatched Tepes to the country that had just been a real bother. "You will find what I seek there."

"Righto."

The Dark God eyes narrowed, "And you will not go about randomly impaling people who annoy you," He ordered, "nor are you to go about wasting time finish any fight as quickly as possible do not and I emphasize this," He stated, "do not draw unnecessary attention to your self or the brotherhood."

"Yes dread father." Droned the vampire.

Sithis was used to this flippancy from his vassal, though he had to admit he found it most amusing when Raiden's, Goa'uld, Lieutenants, simply flipped out and tried to blast the General of Blood. "Your information on your mission will be supplied, as per standard procedure, and try to act your age for once, and you are on a mission do not get side tracked I do not want to you to be planet side any longer than than is necessary."

The vampire flashed a cheeky grin.

Sithis frowned, "That means no senseless killing of Muslims," He reminded the vampire, some of the brotherhood found it difficult to let old grudges die, "either."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know and no crucifying Catholics, and no-"

The Daedric lord stood, "I do not need you to parrot my words back." He interjected green eyes focusing in, "Though let me make myself perfectly and utterly clear, I do not want, under any circumstances want a repeat of the incident two centuries ago, am I understood."

"Yep."

"Good." Sithis waved him away, "Now then begone I have other matters to which I must attend," He ordered.

The Listener of the Crimson Scar smirked, "Yay." He declared before he disappeared sinking into the floor

Sithis turned his attention back to his work, gesturing for the Justicar to approach. It was true most internal judicial matters simply required an Executioner to mediate, or deal with things, some disputes however required more refined touches. The Justicar though were still members of the Fraternal Order of the Dark, with all the skill and efficiency befitting their rank within the Dark Brotherhood. There were times when they were needed to fulfill Judicial affairs, fulfill their roles as judges.

"Shall I follow him honored father?" The old woman inquired, all things considered Tepes should have been reassigned to another world his ties on Earth lingered on, and his acting out brought unneeded attention to the Brotherhood.

Sithis waved the question, "No," He responded, "Your task is far more pressing, you will go to the Americas, go and speak with Elijah. There is much that needs to be done."

"As you will."

-scene break-

This was a meeting of the System lords; all of them .This was the only place where the system lords could meet at any time and not want to kill one another. Everyone, the collection of system lords assembled, exchanged the usual 'proper' friendliness and associated polite façade as was necessary for these gatherings. The meeting was impromptu, something which annoyed Raiden. They were forgoing tradition in the wake of ongoing things. There was no time for the traditional methods when war was building into a raging wildfire. Moloc had called this meeting, and no one was pleased by being summoned by a junior system lord.

"I am sure you understand that that this meeting is of the utmost importance." Stated Moloch who suddenly took several steps backward upon noting Raiden and Anubis looked aggravated. Truth be told even calm, compassionate old man Yu looked ready to murder someone. Sokar was considering far worse at being summoned by the likes of Moloc so abrubtly. "Ra is alive." Moloch managed to squeak out under the collective angry looks of his fellow system lords. Had he given some notice he hardly would have been in such a predicament.

One of the neutral faction managed to beat them all to the vocalizing of what they were all thinking, "Excuse me?" She asked, "Would you repeat that Moloch?" inquired Kali dangerously. The neutral factions comprised the bulk of the system lords, amongst this number officially Heru'ur, Cronus, Sokar, Kali, Bastet, and Olokun. Moloc did officially count amongst their number, and that was precisely the problem he was embarrassing the lot of them in a very public fashion.

"Ra lives," He repeated, "his last known host was spotted."

That disgusting bastard was alive. If anything could make Raiden, Sokar and Anubis even more murderous it was this. "You mean to say Ra lives and we were just now made aware of this?" question Anubis an edge in his voice promising horrible pain.

"I have to agree Ra was never very intelligent," He remarked, "he could not have escaped our attention without help." Stated Raiden

Moloch began to stammer. It was Yu Haung Shang Ti who had spoken rising from his chair to address the room, "Moloch your incompetence is appalling," The first emperor boomed chastising the quaking system lord, "you shame us all with your weakness." Yu proclaimed.

The lesser goa'uld was becoming increasingly nervous by this point. "It's the Tauri's fault." He managed to get out before anyone else could chastise him.

"How is it the human's of earth's fault," Cronus remarked derisively, "I don't think they were hiding the person that they themselves tried to kill." Never mind he had spent a fair amount of time on earth as of late.

By this point Moloch was grasping at straws, which did him no good in the face of his steadily irate fellow system lords. "The Tok'ra-"  
"Against Ra why would they hide him." Kali remarked translating the hated terrorist group, and rogue goa'uld faction's name. As it happened they were in fact helping Ra, but they didn't know that, and as it was truthfully the kind of thing that even with evidence would likely be dismissed out of hand.

Cronus sneered openly glaring at the lesser system lord with open contempt. "Moloch you are a stain on the glory of the system lords." It was by this point general insults against Moloch started flying, from everything to his eating habits to his methods of ruling. The gathering broke, with declaring, and Cronus seconding, a recess of several hours.

-scene break-

"Whats our status exactly?" The director of SHIELD inquired, as it was there had been a large expansion of shield.

His aide de camp looked up, "Approximately seventeen hours ago we completed operation Cleansweep 7. Our elements indicate that at the moment we've thrown InterGang into disarray, however this report indicates that our sanitizing of the situation may have caused a fracture in the organization's leadership." She dropped two report on his desk.

Fury snapped open the security line, and started reading. The first report started on the issue of an attack on an InterGang warehouse suspected of storing alien weapons. There were no particular details about the weapons, it'd been a mess of dead bodies and a bad arson job to cover up the deed. There was still no detail on how InterGang had known about Lab 21 in Gotham's ongoing project, much less how to get passed the security gate, and the initial locks. They'd gotten up to the third lock, before the guards had realized something was wrong, it'd been then that the shooting had started.

Without that information there was no way of telling if they'd try to attack the lab again, and InterGang was a large organization, and there was talk they'd had succeeded from one of the Nazi's splinters after the second world war. So far though there had been confirmation, and all the InterGang lieutenants hadn't been particularly talkative about history, maybe they hadn't known anything, maybe the rumors bullshit. There wasn't really a way to tell one way or another.

They'd been trying to talk the SGC into joining into Project Peagsus, and Phase 2. What did matter was the potential issues of a compromised lab though, Gotham might have had its dangers, but the closeness to Wayne Industries had its long term benefits.

The second report was also far from good news, they'd gotten new reports about Vandal Savage, and a number of others, but mainly Savage. The old bastard was looking for something in the Africa, specifically the cradle of mankind and the Caucuas mountains in Europe as well. Three in depth expeditions were ongoing and he was looking for something.

"Any indication what he's looking for?" The man responded looking up from the report he thumbed down further, "Any chance this is another one of those alien artifact expeditions that were launched?" As it was while Vandal Savage was rumored to be old it wouldn't have been likely for him to have left stuff like that lying around, unless he hadn't been able to move it. That meant if it was big, well there was the possibility of that.

His lieutenant tapped through the tablet computer. "No sir, all the records we have at present are extremely sketchy. All evidence we have is exceptionally limitted, and the SGC has located only a series of ruins, none particularly near either search site."

"Contact stargate command, just supply them with the general regions, see if they have anything." Fury tapped the control on his desk activating the hologram, "We're going to need their help with the carrier if we're to have it operational as quickly as possible."

-scene break-

"This new development changes nothing Raiden." Anubis remarked, while the half ascended system hated Ra he had no intention of diverting resources from the war effort to tracking down especially not with Yu pushing forward like an angry dragon towards his domain. Both sides were trouncing through space claimed by small lords. It made things an interesting three way smashing together. It made for a good testing. There just was no since trying a long hyperspace journey through hostile territory. Both sides needed to build an invasion corridor to supply troops, and fleets, and both sides knew it.

Raiden smirked "Of course not it simply means I have the opportunity to kill Ra with my own hand before I crush your pathetic mobile armors."

"I will not fall so easily Raiden." Anubis hissed, "You've not the supplies to carve a pathway, Yu's ships have set into an assault the little lords, you've taken six worlds, and I've taken nearly four times that number."  
His face set in an annoyed scowl, "I know where Atlantis is." Raiden taunted. "I know that fact, I know it can only be reached from Earth's gate. I know that as it is you can't take earth, and I know you don't have the address."

Anubis's temper flared, and he snarled and the partially ascended being, began vehemently to swear in ancient at the state of affairs. Quite satisfied with his rebuttal Raiden allowed himself smirk openly and walked off, leaving a fuming Anubis in wake. This was a problem of severe nature. "Problem?" Baal inquired, Anubis snarled violently in his principal ally's direction. "That bad?" Baal inquired, well today was just full of bad news.

"Worse." was all he responded.

"Ooh dear," Baal stroked his goatee, "so is the plan off then?"

"Do not speak of any sensitive information."

"Ooh come on," Baal protested in exasperation, "its neutral ground you know how Raiden is honorable matters like that."

"That changes nothing." Anubis snapped.

Raiden smirked the scanners prevented the transport of weapon's onto the station. Now Raiden could not read Anubis's mind, as it was heavily shielded. Nor did he care to know what was in there. Anubis silence still was a welcome sign, though it took some effort to block out all the noise as he called it from other beings. He welcomed that little shard of quiet from the other god's shielded mind.

Poor Anubis, his arrogance, that'd been his undoing last time. Raiden attention perked.

"Something devious?" Pressed a voice from behind him.

He smiled turning to face the red headed Goa'uld queen, "Atium Morrigan." This was one of his bad traits they said, Yu especially thought it would be a problem. He stepped inwards.

"You are speaking that language again." She snapped  
"Euge Nou Incursis." Morrigan growled. "Does it annoy you?"

She glowered at him, "Mikta." Was her response to his inquiry, which really only amused him.

"Take Ashrak." Raiden blurred past Morrigan smirking his hand taking a grip on her arm, they weren't allies he remembered that. "Tol Kek Cra Ra-k" He remarked pressing against the while he lips brushing against her ear, in Goa'uld it meant, My hunter go kill the vile one Ra. His hand loosened and swept down her arm.

Chapter Conclusion

Helltanz's Notes: Tepes, if you can figure out who is good job, will be showing up a bit more, I had originally intended for him not to show up until the Ori conflict. And Politics at their finest. Ra is another minor sub plot.


	24. Chapter 24 Men would die

Chapter 24

Lightning Fervor

Helltanz's notes: As stated in prequel, and earlier, there is a small percentage of the goa'uld who can use magic, just as there is a small percentage of humanity that can use magic on earth.

-Chapter begin-

Raiden smirked the rest of the meeting had progressed much better. Moloch had kept his head bowed in shame the whole time. Heru'ur had spent the rest of the meeting gobsmacked into silence, that as well had been nifty. If however this news was indeed true then it was not good news at all.

In any event there were more pressing matters. Raiden over looked the fleetyard's progress on construction of the new vessels. Now that war was brewing Raiden was concentrating on building larger more dedicated warships in addition to smaller vessels. Anubis's mobile armors proved that a new frigate was a wise investment. Anubis could attempt to attack the Libras were nearing completion, they would be amongst the largest ships to be employed by the System Lords.

Of course soon enough Anubis would soon find all those ha'tak he had captured would be reduced to scrap, even if Anubis did manage to do as Ra did an penetrate his middle rim he would suffer the same fate as Ra's attack group. Of course such would be years from now. Neither side had the ability to directly attack each other right now, being on effectively opposite sides of the galaxy tended to have that effect.

The Shinku Kumo Tatsu flew by flanked by a fleet Pegasus Assault Carriers of the Albion subclass, and four Dark Heaven Harbringer Dreadnoughts. The wing jumped to hyper space off to face another battle. For now he was supporting Yu's advance, though strictly speaking even Yu would start hitting logistical problems soon. A few months though most likely, though maybe a year. It would all depend on how things progressed, certainly it would also depend on Baal and Anubis.

Raiden glanced at one of the reports, Dakara. The world was a bother and was utterly unnecessary in Raiden's opinion. It could also become a problemespecially if the rebel jaffa seized it for even a moment. no if not for the ancient ruins Raiden would have gladly ordered its destruction. Baal was moving to claim the planet as his own, it would be a useful rallying point. It had actually been surprising no one had claimed the world after Ra had fallen, especially that Heru'ur had not taken it.

Such hardly mattered, what matters was that Baal was contributing valuable resources to conquer the world, and thus occupying his fleets' attention. For now Raiden would focus on consolidating his own forces. His focus now was solely on re purposing and expanding his factories. He'd need them to be able to continue to support Yu's continued press.

Neither side was stupid enough to mass an assault against either sides homeworld, or even their core territories. Such attacks were suicidal. You didn't attack a System Lords core domain, save with overwhelming power. Neither side had such power available to them. Even with all their advanced technology, even with all the numbers they didn't have the ability to deliver an effective strike. It was just the way things were.

Raiden knew he needed to complete standarization, he need to phase out unnecessary units from his battle line, and mass produce the remaining ones. He needed to complete upgrade programs for his infantry, and other ground forces before things got any further out of hand.

-scene break-

Something had gone very very wrong. The Dark God turned, he had know another power had been involved "Lucien."

"Dread Father?" questioned the nearly arrived Speaker. Sithis had long considered promoting the dead man to Listener, but in truth there really was no need.

Sithis nodded, "There is a mark I want you to find."

"I live to serve." Responded the member of the Dark Brotherhood, awaiting the task that he was to be assigned by the patron god of the ancient guild of assassins. "Tell me, my lord who must die?" Lucien leChance asked softly kneeling down.

In truth this was not a mission to kill. "Death is only secondary. Find the goa'uld system lord Ra, find who he serves, who watches over him. I seek the information, Ra need not die," He ordered to the Speaker, "go and find out all of this." Sithis stated. Whatever vendetta might have existed between Raiden and Ra did not concern him in the slightest there were higher affairs in play.

"Yes Dread Father." The speaker bowed, "I shall go personally to see to this," He proclaimed, "Your will be done." Sithis nodded in acknowledgment, and the man departed.

There was so much to yet be done. Things were getting increasingly out of hand, Sithis overlooked the massed fleet sitting silently in the void. The pacts Stendarr, and Arkay held on Earth occupied but a fraction of his attention, but they did remind him of his own obligations. He'd still dispatched members of the brotherhood to watch over the girl, to teach, and safeguard. He'd gone himself, when he could spare the time. It was his obligation.

Then there was the Detective. There was so much potential there, and Sithis would gladly put it to use. Still it was a battle for him, Tiberius vyied for influence on the mortal yet, but for now Sithis merely sought to teach the man the responsibility of fatherhood.

Another Speaker bowed, "What of the Guardians my lord?" That was indeed amongst the core issues even as he prepared to end the Age, and wake the Daedric Lord of Order, the Guardians were another matter. This era was ending, and no doubt the death screams would rattle the galaxy, but the Guardians of Kandrakhar were still an issue. They could yet become the critically piece in a puzzle. A key in the lock, as it were.

They hadn't heeded, and nor had he expected them to, him. They had yet continued to meddle in Meridian's affairs, and all Phobos's whining showed was that he'd gotten used to being without real threats to his rule. Such was not a good trait to develop. The Guardians were learning how to use their power, and truthfully that was precisely what he wanted.

One of them had legitimately attempted to kill him. It had been instinct, but that was precisely the issue. Sithis would gladly exploit such. The Guadians were learning, and Phobos would loose people, men would die, and he'd watch the Guardians come to terms with being killers. He'd see how they handled it.

-scene break-

Heru'ur was estatic. He knew it, his father was alive. This must have all been a test, perhaps even engineered by manipulating the Tauri. It would not have been the first time that Ra had vanished only to reappear again he assured himself. Ra would gather his forces and together he would command his father's army in battle to crush these upstarts who were vying for power.

The Avenger overlooked his fleet, and the massive span of shipyards. Yes he would find Ra, and he would show his father the massive war machine he had built. He and Cronus, and well that worm Olokun too, would come to the battle and all together they would restore the peace to this galaxy.

For now though he was content to let Cronus continue to fawn over the Tauri. Once his father was back they'd see what Ra thought of that. The earth was Ra's world, and if he had no problem with such mewlings then Heru'ur wouldn't either. Now that Ra was alive there were other focuses as well.

The likes of Sokar was once again a possible concern. In his father's name Heru'ur had once opposed Sokar. Sokar bore no grudge, and had proclaimed himself to be neutral in the bickering that divided the system lords. It meant he was sitting out, but Heru'ur was no fool he knew that Sokar too was also building up.

Heru'ur personally thought Sokar's taste in aesthetics was atrocious but he did not fault the other goa'uld for still managing a formidable mobile armor design. He had once seen a devil ray on Earth one of his priests had presented it to him. He could not remember the now long dead human's name, only his face. It had been a strong face, the man had been a formidable warrior during the time that Ra had ruled directly over Earth. Heru'ur had respected that.

That Devil Ray had been a massive creature of the sea. That was the shape of Sokar's mobile armor, all painted in dark red. They were fearsome craft. Monstrous in battle especially against the little lords of the goa'uld.

Even now Anubis smashed Little Lords seizing up their resources and consolidating them into his war effort. Ussually Anubis's method seemed to be strip a planet of anything valuable, slaves, already mined resources, ships, and surrendering jaffa and ship them off elsewhere to be consolidated. Heru'ur personally considered it a pathetic undignified tactic, just as Raiden's dawdling was unbecoming of a warlord. No both of them were pathetic tinkerers unworthy of the title of system lords, neither truly rushed into battle to win glorious honor.

It was why he liked Cronus, both he and Heru'ur were alike in that regard. They both thrust themselves directly into the battle leading their jaffa from the front, and crushing the enemy's fleet under their flagships guns.

Heru'ur stroked his beard, perhaps that if things did not go so well and Cronus chose to be foolish and oppose Ra he would take Cronus's daughter Atlanta as his consort.

-scene break-

London was still nice he supposed. Tepes sat in the hotel suite watching the sun set. It was just now nearing the time to go. A mere two hours later the Listener of the Crimson Scar was exasperated at the situation at hand, "How do I get myself in these situations?" groaned the vampire as he shifted about irritably.

Here he was the impaler prince. Here he was on a mission by divine authority, set down as it was by the god of death, rescuing some wanna be vampire hunter. It was a van Hellsing no less, oh sure Gabriel was tolerable but he was a fellow immortal, the blessing by Stendarr aside.

"Let go of me Vampire."  
The vampire gritted his teeth, "Would you be quiet." Tepes snapped. Bang, there was a burning heat, and then just burning sensation. Another bang. 'She shot me that little ungrateful bitch.' Two silver bullets were pushed out of the vampires face by the vampire's regenerative abilities. "Now you see the futility of that don't do it again."  
The blonde's eyes widened in shock at the complete non effect the bullets had had on the high ranking Dark Brotherhood officer. "What kind of vampire are you?" She steadied the small handgun still training it on his face.

"I am Vladislav Dracul Tepes the third," He announced, "Listener of the Crimson scar, General of Blood, Impaler Prince, and Knight of the God of Death." The vampire gave an over exaggerated bow all the while rattling off more titles with little care about his surroundings after all he was the General of Blood.

It was then that there was a series of pops indicating wizards; master had veritably forbidden learning it, or at least using it, in favor of the more efficient and much quieter more conventional teleportation. He despised the pathetic short ranged magical boom tubing like travel.

Of course the wizards had no such restrictions placed upon them by the divine powers that be, "Vampire." one of the wizards hissed recoiling in fear and shock.  
"Mortal wizard, how are you this fine night?" The listener greeted in a bored tone barely paying the pathetic human, who had nearly soiled himself in fear, any heed.

"Die!" A voice shrieked furiously jumping down from an office building.

Oh that was nice it seemed that that little irritating fledgling was back, he mused before he flicked a finger in the lesser being's direction summoning a large spike out of the ground impaling the other vampire. Truth be told it saved him the trouble of having to hunt the vermin down, "Another night another soul for the dread father." Tepes muttered more out of habit than conscious thought.

Not all the wizards were quite as frightened of him as the first to speak up, "Crimson Scar." Hissed one of those wizards recognizing the vampire's affiliation, or more correctly the colors, and pin the vampire wore. "Everyone get out of here." Ordered the scarred wizard.

"Hmm." He looked up intrigued, "Are you familiar with the brotherhood little human?" He asked, he did not know this human. "What do you know of our noble service to our Dread Father, our glorious god of death." A glowing white sword answered that question, and his face set into a scowl. "I see." Tepes hissed, and summoned an ebony arming sword. "A pity, but it would seem your just another mongrel." The vampire rushed forward with all his supernatural speed and struck sending Moody flying. "Time to die Templar filth!" He roared, "Your soul for Sithis. You will die this night!" The vampire called angrily swing downward. The wizard's emergency portkey activated. "Oh if that doesn't take the cake, blasted wizards." Tepes grumbled in annoyance walking back to where he had dropped the young vampire hunter in his haste to strike against the Knight of the Nine.

The other wizards stared, and few vanished in portkeys.

Tepes looked around, "I don't suppose any of you are Templar Filth?" Seeing that he received no response from any of the shellshocked wizards he picked up the Van Helsing and tossed her easily over his shoulder, "No, oh good then." He commented and started walking off.

-scene break-

Here they were again in Hogwarts. In the makeshift Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix the assembled party which had been in London, along with other members of the order had assembled around a large table.

Moody had luckily been wearing his enchanted armor, which had thankfully prevented any serious consequences from the enchanted blade. His ribs were sore, but none were broken, and by and large he was in fact pretty much fine. "Alastor if I may ask exactly what happened?" Dumbledore inquired. "What exactly was all that about?"

"Sithis happened," The scarred wizard snapped angrily at the Headmaster, "He sent Tepes," He growled, "Tepes Listener of the Crimson Scar," The Knight of the Nine continued, growing increasingly frustrated. "he is one the highest ranking members known to belong to the Crimson Scar or the Brotherhood in general, he reports directly to Sithis." Ranted Moody.

Dumbledore stared at his old friend, "Now Alastor could you repeat that slowly so we don't miss anything, what precisely is that matter here."

"Tepes is here, In England once again, Albus." "Tepes, Sithis is not toying about any more, he sent a thrice damned listener, and a member of the Crimson Scar, no less."

The headmaster and leader of the order of the Pheonix sighed, "Alastor let us perhaps start with what is Crimson Scar?" He inquired, he really hated being out of the loop on things especially when this was clearly very important.  
"It's a sect within the Brotherhood, all its members are vampires," Moody announced, which actually wasn't what made them a real problem, "they are fundamentally Sithis's largest and most powerful group of shock troops." The scarred wizard stated, "We're talking vampires imbued and strengthened by the god of Death. To elaborate the Crimson Scar are an all vampire sect of the Brotherhood, within the Brotherhood they serve two purposes full on assault as well as assassination missions which require more effort than the average member of the Brotherhood." Explained moody.

"Mad eye what's so bad about this particular listener?" Asked Bill. "I mean from the way he was acting he didn't seem that bad until you know called him out, and pulled that sword on him"  
Moody glowered at the red head, and rubbed his sore wrist, which was kind of scary given the magic eye, "His name is Vladislav Dracula, better known as Vlad Tepes or simply Dracula born fourteen thirty-one died fourteen seventy-six." He announced, "Tepes became a vampire upon his death, and through the will and power of Sithis was enlisted into the Dark Brotherhood, were he quickly rose through its ranks. He is perhaps one of the strongest vampires in Sithis's ranks, and if not he is at least the most well known. We officially have him classified as an S class Nosferatu type Vampire, a true member of the undead, rather than a vampire whose heart still beats." Moody clarified for the assembled wizards, "Tepes is cruel, sadistic, disrespectful, and loves war, but at the same time he is also efficient, once he starts a task he will not stop unless he is forced to. I really don't think Sithis appreciated you attempting to interfere, Tepes and Sithis both despise it when some one interferes in their plans."  
"I'm sure you are exaggerating, there was no evidence he was even interested in us at all." Albus responded, besides from what he had heard this 'Tepes' fellow had been more interested in rescuing the young lady than fighting the Order, so obviously, "if Harry was truly angry surely he would of acted by now." In truth he was somewhat correct, Tepes was not here for them.

The scarred wizard groaned, "You're taking this far to lightly, Sithis is currently in the middle of a war according to intelligence, against Anubis, ring a bell Egyptian god of death, he probably sent Tepes to eliminate us while he deals with Anubis." Moody growled. The information was completely wrong, Sithis didn't care at all about Anubis, or in fact any of the struggles amongst the goa'uld enough to mobilize his fleet.

"Um Moody is it possible your just jumping on the nearest plausible explanation," Bill spoke up, he had as of late been serving as the Order's chief researcher on the gods, "I mean Sithis could have sent him to look anything, right? Lets face it he was focused on saving the girl."  
He frowned, "Even before becoming a vampire he was known as the Impaler Prince, but I suppose you are right Sithis might have sent him for a different reason," Moody remarked crossing his arms over his chest. "but it is unlikely. Now that being said we should figure out who the girl is."

-scene break-

All four System lords had sent units to this portion of the disputed Central region of goa'uld space. Once again it was Yu's forces that focused the bulk of the numbers, but Raiden had been able to supply a sizable capital ship and screening force. With good reason given the situation. Anubis had been dipping south, no doubt intending to reinforce Baal's efforts to take Dakarra. A fortified position their could truly be a useful staging ground, and major fleet hub.

Most of the allied fire had been concentrated on Anubis, and with expected results. The central portion of Anubis's line began to splinter under sustained barrages from the combined force. Each of the Peacemillion class battleships were supported by Dark Heaven Harbringer subclass Dreadnoughts who were further supported by dozens of latest Generation Ha'taks bearing the markings of Yu Huang Shang Ti's chief vassal, and prime minister Guan Yu.

Minerva class and Nana Buluku class fast battleships were providing additional support along the larger vessels flanks and keeping the mobile armors who were attacking the capital ships.

All the while Albion subclass and Daitenchi class Assault Carriers and their Mobile Suits were pressing forward in a strike against Anubis's flank coming up on an ascending relative to both main forces. "My lord the Yamato and Nihon have dropped from hyperspace. Both warships have arrived with their respective escorts."

Two more Peacemillions, the Yamato and Nihon, and their escorts, six Granshiro, appeared above the world high above both main fleet formations. The sleek black battleships attacked first releasing a flurry of deadly Directed energy and physical munitions at Anubis's remaining withdrawing fleet.

Raiden nodded, watching as the newly arrived ships pressed down on Anubis's Ha'tak who had been attempting to focus their guns on the ascending assault force. "Order Kegai no Tama and Hoshi no Tama to reinforce the Garrison."

"Yes my lord."

It didn't make sense. Anubis had struck out at them suddenly, and now was withdrawing from the battle while it was still largely deadlocked. 'Anubis you aren't putting enough effort for this to be a genuine attempt at conquest of this system,' He mused over the situation at hand, 'this is the fifth sector in this region you have attacked, and the twelfth that you have attempted to withdraw from after meeting with initial incursions from Yu or my own forces, all you are doing is snatching up Ha'tak faster than I can destroy them at the moment.'

The formerly exiled system lord was up to something but even if he was aiming to just steal as many Ha'tak as he could they would do little good, as the longer this went on the more Raiden and his allies superior industry would tip things against Anubis.

No doubt Anubis also knew this and had his own plans to act, but what those plans were remained to be seen, ultimately while Ha'tak were a large investment of resources so to were Raiden's newer larger capital ships.

Earth was another matter Sokar and Cronus were now working much more closely with the blue world and this was leading to advancements on both sides, it was something that would but them all in stronger positions in the new regime.

Chapter Conclusion

Helltanz's Notes: To summarize the Order knows Tepes has arrived in England, which will be a minor annoyance to Raiden and Sithis both, also Anubis thinks he's being clever by only invading a system long enough for him to collect the Ha'tak.


	25. Chapter 25

Chapter 25

Lightning Fervor

Helltanz's notes: you actually see the other Daedric lords

Chapter begin

–

This world had been one that Anubis had contested just long enough to steal the minor lords few measley Ha'tak. He had sent his Kull warriors to attack, and board the Ha'tak, and kill the jaffa on board, and then sent Jaffa to crew them. It had been quick, and well coordinated. Anubis had been refining the technique, as at the time of the operation elements of his fleet had also been nagging a small group of Raiden's forces. That force had been the very furthest of Raiden's deployed troops.

Tsubasa held the honor of being his noble god's most benevolent and kind vassal. He was the general of dreams, and sweet as a peach it was said amongst Jaffa. Boyish in figure, and blessed with gentle heart he was a living saint.

To be a Jaffa in Tsubasa's service was a great honor. The hok'tar was kind, patient, and generous. He inspired great loyalty in his men simply through force of personality. Thus in Raiden's name, and in the name of his liege lord Aoyama Keito gladly hurled himself in front of the beam of oncoming death.

The plasma smashed into chest, blossoming across his armor singing his face, and burning his well trimmed beard. Aoyama stumbled, a second bolt fired into his chest, and his armor buckled, heating and melting in places. Still the samurai was close enough to still manage a lunge tackling the former minor goa'uld, cornerned spy and would be assassin to the ground. He could feel the burns across his stomach, and the crushing pain in his gut.

Aoyama paid it no mind, and drew with singular purpose his blade in a reverse grip and plunged downward. It met flesh, and silk, and chain and punched deep spraying blood. He was dead, he knew it, but as Jaffa, as a samurai he had dedicated his ninety seven years in faithful service to his god, and to his noble liege lord to die like this was no so bad. His family would remember his sacrifice against the evil, and honor his memory as how he had honored his father's memory.

Tsubasa shouted orders, and Jaffa rushed to seccure the entirety of the room. They rushed to sweep it for explosives, or other cowardly booby traps that the would be assassin might have set in an attempt to insure the success of this honorless attack. Tsubasa was moving forward, magic swirling.

It had been foolish not to be alert about the potential for an attack, that had been his mistake. Still Aoyama Keito was not dead yet. He could yet save the Jaffa's life, and Raiden would be pleased that he could report that at least one Tok'ra was dead. The System Lord would want to see the body, might even both to use the sarcophagus, but most likely he would just take the time to memorize the face, and have the corpse burned on a pyre. Still they needed to know what the Tok'ra had been doing here, even if officially the Tok'ra-Tauri-Shol'va alliance had been disolved they might yet be able to find important evidence.

-scene break-

Sithis smiled gently, as he settled on the stones. Nothing could disturb his serenity it seemed. Not even the fact that Arkay's sworn pact bearer was sixty nine meters from him in the mansion here, not even that. The dread father had it been anyone else might have expected them to actually perhaps challenge his right to be here, but Arkay was not likely to stay anything. Right now the Aedra was too busy settled into the Manse, no doubt occupied with his pact obligations.

Sithis considered the mortal news with some irritation. He took a minute to sip the fizzy beverage offered to him. They were crowded around a couch watching the ongoing cleanup in London after Tepes's actions. A dozen reporters had been swarming the scene more than hour before the police had got to the scene. They'd mistook for an alien incident, which was all the rage amongst the Tauri news enterprises.

"So what happened over there?" She had good reason to ask the question, the street was a mess, a smattering of streets full of shattered glass, and street with a single massive tear down the center, and splattered blood and strewn bodies.

He lifted the glass again, "A stupid boy taking his time on things," He took an easy sip on the soda drink, and sighed, "You shouldn't worry," Sithis rubbed her head lightly, "he's a stupid boy, but he'll do his duty. I should expect this will turn into a repeat of Talvera's bloodshed but the upstarts will die, and when the killing is done Tepes will go back to his keep, and stay there," he would if he knew what was good for him, or Loiusa of Mouromorto would stomp Tepes's chest in till it was blood and snapped bones. He knew the listener would take little patience with Tepes's prodding. Long as both were ready the next time he needed them, Earth was a busy theater. The channel flipped, he ignored the chatter about the new news story, and sipped at his soda.

"Do you think they're mutants?" Kitty asked, "I mean they say Dakota has such a massive upsurge in them, after this Big Bang,"

He let the glass clink on the table, "You've answered your own question," The death god commented, "They're not mutants this thing Edwin took from Norman, this mutagenic gas is just a precursor. He wants a revolution, a new strain for man, a bright future," It was also so ruddy foolish engineering this, but then it was still advantageous that he simply couldnt afford to let it pass by, that was why he had Elijah there. "A light in the dark, a legacy to bring man the strength to defend itself. Thats why that boy always wanted, a legacy." Sithis lifted the glass and drained the rest of the drink

"So do we go there?"

Sithis snorted, "of course not. My oath stands before my kin, your well being my responsibility, understand this. My oath is my bond, for I am death, immutable god of the void am I, and father of all." The daedra hissed rising, and turning from the couch, "Is that not correct Arkay?" he demanded facing the Aedra.

There was a silence that held for a moment, even as the mutants who were standing started to back away, as god stared at god. The silence held, and held, and then it ended as Sithis's lips twitched upward.

Then he laughed, and clasped his hand on the Aedra's shoulder, "So what is my saint hearted brother doing on this miserable little rock so frightfully busy?"

-scene break-

For Sirius he'd settled nicely into England, opened up a little office, and gotten himself a nice little house. It'd been quiet, truth be told he liked the American definition of quiet, all the rock and roll was fun. This whole superhero lifestyle shit on the west coast was a blast, to use some of the muggle phrasing he'd picked up. True he'd been talking with England, finally, the nagging had gotten to him after a bit. It was partially why he was back here. He didn't plan on making it a habit, he had a life to live.

Moody was praying when Sirius found him. He was praying for guidance, praying for strength, praying for vigilance in the coming storm, and praying for countless other things when Sirius found him in the chapel. Sirius had never quite caught Moody praying to the Aedra before.

The Abbot of the Monastery had hastily chided Moody for something as they left, and that was when Sirius saw it, there was a long bloody stain on the bandages of Moody's hand, that Sirius hadn't seen at first. There was a smudge of blood on the altar, where Moody had been busy in prayer. "You should watch it Black," Moody growled, "You don't know anything. The Daedra are ancient, just as old as the Aedra. They are the old gods after all, and they would break these new gods easily. Let the Dark Lord talk all he likes about how I'm slipping,"

"Oh," That was his dignified response. It was true there were rumors circulating about how Voldemort had joked that perhaps Mad Eye Moody was loosing his edge. Of course it could just be Death Eater started rumors.

Moody snorted, "Oh?" He gave another gruff snort, "hah bugger can fuck himself, Vladislav Tepes is a Listener of the Crimson Scar, he is Sithis's mad dog. Stendarr's faithful once drove him from England, and good gods willing it will be so this time, but I do not fear the Dark Lord's mocking." Mad eye growled low, "You understand this Sirius Black," He pulled the bandages from his arm, "That bastard, Vladislav Tepes has been killing since he was a mortal warlord. He was a fighter first." The arm was bruised and swollen, "and that big black sword of his is not just for show. You should know that first of all,"

"You think he's up to somethings." It was more of a statement rather than a question for Sirius, he knew that Mad Eye thought something was up that was just Mad Eye being Mad Eye.  
"Vampires don't save Vampire Hunters, especially from other vampires." Moody snapped, "I know you've gone into this muggle magical detective thing, so maybe just maybe Black you and I can track this lead down. What do you say to that?"

Sirius smirked, "I say you better be able to keep up old man, Sirius Black is going to take this case,"

-scene break-

For Lucien this whole affair was hilarious to watch, getting on site had been easy enough these mortals were so used to the technological solution, but ill prepared for the arcane solution. He'd slipped through their underground fortifications easily, and with nary a notice by their guards, and here he was.

It was quite the interesting site at the Tauri Alpha site. Jonathan 'Jack' O'neill had his side arm leveled against a Tok'ra, with quite the crowd of spectators drawn all around him as he barked orders at the woman. "Anise get the hell out of the way, now damn it." O'neill yelled pointing his Berretta side arm at the Goa'uld rebel.

The Tok'ra were worried O'neill was by no means the resistance group's biggest fan, no not even close to be. The jaffa on the other hand, well the more hot headed Jaffa were waiting for the oncoming bloodshed with a great deal anticipation, O'neill was respected would be the word to describe him among the jaffa, him shooting a Tok'ra would be all the Jaffa needed to follow his example, considering they really didn't like the Tok'ra. It was a feeling that was quite mutual amongst the tok'ra..

The Tauri personnel were rather disturbed, and were unsure what exactly to do given the present situation. "Jack what is going on here?" Daniel slid to a halt and reached for his own pistol. Daniel was a lot steadier now in pulling it out. He too leveled his side arm but unlike his team leader pointed it at the very familiar looking adolescent, likely O'neill's original target, behind the Tok'ra.

Well that pretty much settled it for the Jaffa assembled if as the humans would have described Danny as the Nancy boy of the vaunted SG 1 team was pointing his weapon at the Tok'ra whore and the other host there had to be a reason. The Jaffa warriors all leveled their weapons.

Anise didn't like this at all, especially considering both her and her symbiote liked both of the Earth natives, "What is wrong with the two of you. He's just a boy." She snapped angrily.

"He's a Goa'uld." Jack growled angrily in response, yeah the Jaffa clicked their staff weapons into action creating a near simultaneous snap as almost a hundred staff weapons opened and were charged to fire. Some of them were legitimate staff weapons others were the bastardized rifle staffs that the Tauri had shown them how to cut down.

"He is just a boy! He and his symbiote have done nothing wrong." The Tok'ra protested keeping a wary eye on the army of Jaffa who were flanking Jack and Daniel.

"He's Ra!" the ancient gene carrier shouted again

"That's absurd." She retorted hotly in response.

Lucien leChance toyed easily on the knife handle resting on the back of his belt. It was a pity the Dread Father had sent him to gather information rather than to kill. It would have been so easy to make it look like one of the Jaffa had gotten trigger happy.

-scene break-

Elijah took a bit of the cornbread that was on his table. 'Every, every Listener, and Speaker on the whole damn world' That was just how it was, by now even the lowliest of the Brotherhood had surely heard Sithis sweet, and glorious proclamation. They had even heard talk that his declaration had been witnessed by no less than three of the Aedra upon the mountains up in the North. The proclamation about the Guadians had been another thing, personally Elijah wasn't much bothered by the declaration. He had his task, and if it was Sithis's will that they not mess with the Guardians, well yes it was an odd thing, but not their place to question. Still he smacked his hand on the table, it was nice polished walnut table. "Shut it all of you," He drawled on long. There was silence in the room after that, and he took a bite of the cornbread, "Dread Father done told you all ain't nothing to be done against the Guardians, means you lot will stay in line. Now tell me what Alva's up to, before I wring your neck something fierce." He snapped at the assembled lot, "Now I also want to hear all about this cyber warfare infiltration we've go ongoing, but that can indeed wait a minute."

A beady eyed man stepped forward, he would have looked more scientist than anything save for the long scar stretching nearly across his entire neck, then there was the way he dressed. "Edwin Alva's ongoing program is primarily focused on expanding research into the quantum expansion properties of the mutagenic gas that he relieved from Norman Osborne." The man took the time to bring up the report, "He gathered the sample from one of Connor's former assistants, who had made his own modifications, and hoped to win some small bit of fame." Elijah took a minute to finger through the collection of photographs, and gestured for the lanky man to continue, "All things considered the process is rather concerning, the aerisolization of the gas allows its to spread, and thus far we're not quite certain how problematic development of this could be. Testing has revealed exposure of the specimen does not appear to add new powers, though it may strengthen the original ability. At this time we are still reviewing data from Alva Industries, as well as the original research from OsCorp's production labs." This was were things became problematic for all involved agencies. If Norman Osborne were to discover the success of Connor's assistant's formula, he'd likely redouble his funding of Connor's program in hopes of recreating the serum for OsCorp. As it was given Alva's suspected motivations that could lead to a second 'Big Bang' in New York City.

"Estimation of the time it would take for such an initiative?" Elijah's Silencer questioned their expert, "Do we expect to need to move quickly?"

The beady eyed man shifted, "At present, a year perhaps though it would ultimately depend on when precisely Norman Osborne catches wind of all of this."

-scene break-

Sithis glanced upon the blue celestial sphere that occupied his field of vision. This was the world of Nirn. It was a world held many a fond memory of simpler more peaceful times. It was at times a much more endurable world than the Tauri homeworld of Earth, thought most of that was all Nostalgia. They'd burned the Cityship years ago... that had been so long ago.

The only other world which was nearly as blessed by a naturally born and abundant population of magic users outside of the arm which the Daedra and Aedra had confined themselves to.

Earth's magical population was boring, to say the least, not a shred of ingenuity and they had severed themselves from the non magical populous which had led to less of a magical populous because magic was a normally dominant trait.

Nirn was the exact opposite the two 'worlds' had never separated, and it showed Nirn's entire population could use magic, while Earth only about two percent of the six point seven billion populous were magical, of course earth now had Hok'tar increasing the world's value to both the goa'uld and the Daedric and Aedric gods.

The Daedric lord glanced back the sphere remembering the beginning. Long ago a large numbers of the first members of the Brotherhood were recruited from Nirn, or the other Ayeleid empire worlds, so very long ago so much had changed from then, and then transferred to other assignments on other worlds to establish his power base.

"Well, well." Came a positively insane sounding voice. "If it isn't the king of death, himself." The new voice cackled long, and loud.  
The Dark God smiled at his fellow daedric lord, "Hello Sheogorath." He greeted the lord of madness in a polite, if amused tone.  
"So what brings you deathy here." The god of mischief twirled around comically like a ballerina at inhuman speeds creating a small whirlwind of dirt cackling madly. "Sooo Sithy what brings you to this region of Oblivion?"

"I need to speak to Jyggalag."

It was enough to draw all humor from the other Daedra. "Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, and no, not happening." Sheogorath all but shrieked suddenly all serious at the situation, "Sithis that is not even remotely funny, back," He protested, "no stay away from me. No I don't want him to come out." Sheogorath continued to back up hastily.

Sithis smiled baring the lengthened canines in a cold smirk, "I wasn't exactly givining you a choice in the matter." The lord of the void lashed out and caught the daedric lord of Chaos in the nose with void encased punch. The lord of chaos dropped to the ground like a heap of rocks and began glowing gold.

"Hail Sithis." Greeted the Daedric lord who had taken Sheogorath's place.  
Sithis's smile deepened, "Jyggalag." He greeted the Daedric lord of Order. "Your task of orders has not changed." The dread father stated to the other immensely powerful Daedric lord.

"Order will prevail." He proclaimed, "So then what has occurred in my absence since the end of the twelfth era of this world?"

"From what I have gleamed, worship of us has become widedspread through out all of Nirn, including the provinces of the Empire of Tamriel, save Dagon of course," He smiled at this, "the mortals fail to realize though Akatosh died with Dagon."

"Death is the final portion of life. The end of a cycle. This is the natural order of things, a predator must survive by killing, this is how things survive. All must be in the natural order."

Sithis nodded, Jyggalag was and had always been amongst his most trusted lieutenants even before they had ascended to godhood and that had been a long time ago. Besides he was just speeding things up a new era was to begin soon so Jyggalag would have been freed from the geass of the Daedric Lords.

Of course some of his compatriots would not like this at all given with Jyggalag free Sithis did have one of his most powerful lieutenants at his command once again, and Jyggalag was amongst the most powerful of the Daedra to still live.

-scene break-

Jack was toying with a pen as they looked over the latest reports to filter in to Stargate Command. "So we know Raiden's been on earth, I mean we knew that, so I say we go to Japan and look for him now." O'neill commented, never mind he had absolutely no idea how precisely they were going to stop him. "Or at the very least go try and figure out what he's been doing."

Teal'c perked up, "Were you not just concerned with Ra's apparent continued survival," The jaffa stated, "O'neill."

"Forget Ra for the moment," O'neill remarked in response, regretted that Thor wasn't the one telling them this. "Raiden is the much bigger fish for the time being we need to focus on him," He paused turning towards the Asgard, and posed the question that had been bothering him. "so uh, is there any chance Anubis has been on Earth."

The gray alien faced the colonel, "No Anubis still lacks the necessary stealth technology to evade the Asgard sensors," The asgard commented, "Raiden's own development is very recent, and not completely effective either, though technically Raiden has not actually broken the treaty." Kvasir reminded the assembled members of the SGC, to some annoyance amongst the officers. "Raiden has only previously operated where he has followers though his latest visits were to other states on earth."  
"Where exactly on Earth has Raiden been operating?" General Hammond inquired, like Jack he really didn't like this, but at least Anubis hadn't also been traipsing around the planet as he pleased.

A hologram of Earth appears with several highlighted regions which were had further projections manifesting from them. "Raiden has made visits to the states of Greece the northern eastern regions of the United States of America, France and Japan most commonly."

"Shit, we have to ring them up and check their entire government staff now," The colonel all but shouted jumping up from his chair, they'd need to start now since that was a lot of government officials, "General."

"I must agree Colonel, this is a serious security breach," General Hammond concured reaching for his official phone.

Daniel perked up, "Uhm Jack," The archeologist began, "I've been thinking,"

"What's new with that Danny boy?" he quipped "You are always thinking."

"According to legend the Japanese royal family are descendants of Amaterasu, more than likely they may not have to have been implanted by symbiotes to side with Raiden but none the less getting them tested not going to be easy."

Jack frowned "Wait, Aren't Goa'uld having kids illegal or something?" he groaned

The former first prime of Apophis spoke up, "Only between two Goa'uld though it seems unlikely a system lord would bear a child." Stated Teal'c.

"Right I can kind of guess why Raiden would go to Egypt, it being where the Goa'uld originally influenced humanity, but Greece? I mean he's Japanese."

Carter shrugged, "There has been an obvious Greek naming trend in some of his warships," She commented, "and according to information acquired he does have Artemis as an underlord."

Jack nodded grudgingly, admittedly Carter did have a point he had forgotten about that little fact, and it did he admitted make sense, but that did still put Raiden traipsing about the north eastern continental US which was far too close to DC and other major areas for his taste.

That was when the Asgard broke the worse news, while yes they were aware of the facilities on Mars, and told the Tauri not to concern themselves with them the Asgard had other news to share. News about old evils, and ancient powers stirring that were all posed far worse than Anubis's current threat.

-scene break-

The Shinku Rai Tatsu was currently 'parked' in a cloaked lunar orbit, Saki's transmission that he had been successful had been a welcome bit of good news indeed. He doubted the Asgard would do anything but had left orders that if it becamme necessary keep the Asgard distracted, for under no circumstances are they to be allowed to interfere, and if the need arose they were to crush theml If they, the Asgard summoned additional ships his forces were to do the same, but they were not unless absolutely necessary to activate the Lunar and Mars Facilities.

He didn't imagine it would be necessary. In point of fact he doubted that the Asgard would consider it needed to intervene, and the Tauri, whatever indignity they might think they were being subjected too just did not have the power projection capacity. As it was he more expected that Saki's plans were more likely to be intruded on by the Tauri Justice league.

The top floor of the large skyscraper was the usual meeting place for convening with Oroku Saki to check in on the leader of the Foot Clan's progress. "So indeed it would seem you have made progress Saki are you prepared to launch the attack?" He questioned, it was primarily intended to be rhetorical. If Saki had not managed to prepare his troops ahead of the assault on the Umtrom stronghold Raiden would have been positively furious.  
"Yes, my lord." Stated the shredder with a nod. "The Foot Clan in this city are prepared to breach, I have taken all possible steps to insure that even if this were to spill outwards that we would yet be able to successfully contain this."

He nodded, though strictly speaking he doubted that if this did spill out such would be the case, as it was it was likely the Justice League would interfere if it came to fighting on the streets of New York. "Good." Raiden praised before he withdrew a long wooden box from seemingly out of nowhere. In truth it was a minor trick, useful only for making small children laugh, and as a means of storing gifts without having to suffer the indignity of visibly carrying them personally. "Seeing as you lost your previous sword," The leader of the foot had the decency to look at least a little embarrassed at being called out over such a great shame. "I have had Masamune produce for you a new one, it is different from your previous Tengu series as you will note." Raiden drawled on, "This new one is quite a bit of an improvement over you lost weapon, though it retains your previous Tengu series sword's screaming capabilities. Finish making the arrangements you feel necessary we will attack once everything is prepared. Go now."

The Shredder opened the box withdrawing the finely crafted blade that his master had presented to him while the system lord focused on other matters for a moment. Once the Umtrom were dealt with things would be much easier to deal with though there were risks of launching a direct assault. The Justice League, and the Tauri's many intelligence agencies amongst them. He also knew it was critical to avoid the attention of the likes of Sokar.

Chapter Conclusion

Helltanz's Notes:


	26. Chapter 26

Chapter 26

Lightning Fervor

Helltanz's notes:

Chapter begin

–

For SHIELD this was not a good day. "Whats our status lieutenant?"  
"Breach in 30, sir," Responded Fury's second in command, "We estimate sixty plus hostile contacts in the tunnels. The installation was too damned far to reach quickly to reinforce them, and this installation most of all would be hard pressed to explain to friends much less those were less understanding of the need for certain actions.

Still they should have expected something was up. Fury stared at the hated sigil, that damned mark, all bright read and harsh lines. They'd expected bullies, more barbarians, and criminals from the organization when the raid had started, and then that'd been when things had started going wrong. At first they thought they'd found the, or at least a, cache of Thanagarian wapons, but they'd been proven wrong. That'd tipped them off that something bigger was afoot.

He looked at the one guy from the warehouse they'd raided starting all this, "Do we have an idea who this guy is?"  
"Hyuk, sir Korean national, graduated top of his class business management, vanished two years ago, resurfaced two months ago, though we think he was involved in insurgency operations against the Thanagarians." Which meant they had nothing, which meant they knew nothings.

Fury groaned, "Tell me you've got something,"  
"We've got a tattoo picture, " The lieutenant responded, bringing up a picture of the Korean national, "When we got a hit from the symbol in the SGC database we were afraid goa'uld, its not its Ancient. The SGC believes it belongs to a group called the Alteran." She paused, "Sir they just breached the facility."  
"Whats the symbol?"

"It means Order, sir." She looked back at the screen, "Sir we've got confirmed engagement, energy weapons, and conventional small arms."

Fury glanced at the screen, "Call the Farm, call Percy at the NID, tell them they've got a greenlight to go in," They were the closest, better to have to explain some things, than explain loosing the facility to the senators on the committee.

"Sir?"

"You said they've got alien weapons, and magic right? That they're not goa'uld, they took InterGang enforcers out who were equipped with Thanagarian weapons, now they've breached one of our classified complexes. Do we even know what they're after?" A shake of the head, "Then we need one of them alive, or forensics to start a back trace, and a bunch of techs, and a token security force," Damn he wished congress would stop dicking around with his budget. "working with Percy is the only option, we need to bring everyone in on this."

"Sir we have audio on the broadcast."

"What..." Fury deadpanned, "Put it on, record get it up!"

There was hissing, not like snake hissing, but like superheated air, coming from the speakers, probably whatever alien weapons the attackers were using. Plus the sound gunfire, and there was talking.

"Sir they're about to breach the vault, there in the network..."

Fury tore his eyes away from the screen, "What is it lieutenant?"

"They're logging something out of the vault!" It didn't make any sense, "I don't understand they're checking out artifact 2521 from storage.

Fury sat back, something they'd never been able to figure out, "Contact the SGC, send them all the fucking pictures we have on artifact 2521. We need to figure out what that thing is." He zoomed the camera in on the enemy leader. That same symbol, the Ancient word for Order blazoned on his jest, burnished gold color armor. What the fuck was going on, who the fuck broke into a classified military intelligence research initiative and told them what they were stealing.

The figure in what was probably powered armor pressed his fingers into the artifact, it started glowing. The man spun it around pressed in again, and waited ignoring the rounds flying past him. Then artifact 2521 popped out a small crystalline object roughly squarish in shape with lines going down it, the man in armor pulled it out of the artifiact, and dropped 2521 and said something in a language, and then turned and started leaving. That was when the cameras went dead.

"Sir NID strike teams are three minutes out. There planning to fast rope in, we might be able to catch them on the way out."

-scene break-

Raiden gripped his own sword in anticipation for the impending clash to occur with another of his hated enemies. The blade which despite its simple appearance was quite dangerous even at long range, indeed its simple appearance hid its true complexity. The system lord had always had access to magic even before his fusion which had led to his present form, he needed only to run a small jolt of his energy and the sword would become a small but high powered electro magnetically accelerated projectile weapon. To put such in laymen's terms a railgun, as well as it increased Raiden's magical attacks. Amongst the sword's other abilities was the capacity to releasepulses of Electromagnetic energy, which disabled unprotected machines, and interfered with the natural electric field of living organisms.

The Shinto kami fully intended to exploit the full power of his magic and that of his enchanted blade against the enemy that Saki had been tasked to finding on this world.

The TCRI Building was an impressive structure. Its defenses reasonably established to withstand an assault. He appreciated his enemies being prepared it made the victory that much sweeter.

Raiden slashed out at one of the Umtrom Exosuits, it split in half. Saki and the other foot ninja were making exceptional progress despite the heavy resistance put up by the Umtrom and their human gaurdians. It did disappoint him though that the progress was less than what the dark brotherhood regular troops would have been able to accomplish, outside of certain exemplary performances by members of the Foot. He was pleased by this performance, each of his commands had there own shinobi. Saki had his Foot Ninja, Talpa had his Hand, and little Aoshi had his Oniwanbanshu of course.

He spun around the tip of his blade severing three of the Umtrom's human protector's heads, the decapitation sending arterial spray across the walls. He, though, Raiden employed his own, but that he could expect some responsibility from his subordinates pleased him.

Raiden thrust his sword into the 'stomach' of an Umtrom Exosuit, the defender yielded a most satisfying spray of green blood. It coated his hand, staining the silk of his sleeve, the Shinto Kami smirked, as lightning crackled forth from the system lord as it passed all that was left were several charred corpses. Raiden raised his sword leveling it and sliding into a stance in the direction of a heavily reinforced security door.

"Uh master…" Hun, chains of purple fire curling around his arms, began to speak in an attempt to gain the system lord's attention.

Too little to late, from Raiden swords came two blasts of energy that flew outwards and struck the blast door, the first impacted destroying the door the second exploded well into the room showering the awaiting Umtrom and their mortal defenders with molten shards of copper.

"Shredder?" came a stunned exclamation as they walked through the destroyed door way. Raiden turned to face the voice true surprise crossing his face. The turtles from the mouser incident, and some others according to Saki. Then it would seem that answered that question, no matter though, they were of little concern, he mused.

Saki raised his new sword to defend himself. The sword glowed brightly, and the leader of the foot ninja swung, releasing a concentrated blast of sonic energy against his opponent.

The four reptiles scattered to avoid the blast. "Looks the shredder got an upgrade!" commented the purple masked turtle.

"Yeah no kidding." Agreed another sarcastically, "As if he wasn't enough of a pain without them." Groaned the nunchaku wielding turtle.

"Who's the other guy?"

"Who cares." Exclaimed the red masked reptile preparing to attack only for the hulking form of Hun to step forward. the red masked turtle accepted the challenge and rushed the massive blonde. It was clash, as Hun swung the purple chains of fire, causing the turtles to somersault over the wave of heat, and burning fire.

Raiden examined the four, the one who spoke first had a Bo staff. The second was armed with a pair of nunchaku and wore an orange mask. The third speaker wore a blue mask and wielded a pair of ninjaken. The fourth and last was armed with Sai and was wearing a red mask, who was now engaging Hun. "Saki." He stated,

"Master?" The leader of the foot ninja clan responded turning away from the turtles so as to face the Shinto Kami. In many situations it would have been foolish, but Saki would rather be attacked than show his liege order any disrespect by not turning and bowing, what ever the Turtles could do might hurt, but Raiden was lord of the storm, and Saki wanted no ire from the winds and the rain.

He also turned this time towards the alien foes, the umtrom, "Ignore the reptiles," He commanded, "You are to destroy the Umtrom device."  
"As you wish Raiden-sama." The shredder gave a curt bow and turned towards the Umtrom teleportation device his sword glowed, clenched in his fist. The pulsing grew until it was a blinding white light. He swung the blade at the device. The sonic energy distorted the air and collided with the machine.

The explosion rocked the room sending plumes of smoke and debris flooding into the room as well as activating the sprinkler system.

Saki was forced to turn his attention to facing the Umtrom captain."Ch'rell!" Mortu rained three blows on the leader of the foot, knocking Saki's weapon, his sword from his hand.

The leader of the foot wiped the blood from his mouth, and clenched his fist slight glowing of magic across his hand as he did so. "My name is Saki," He hissed in reply to the shout, and then he lunged, "Mortu now you die!" the leader of the foot ninja plunged his prongs into the Umtrom and twisted coating his hand with the greenish blood.

Saki had been gloating over Mortu's body when the blue masked turtle leapt at the Shredder's exposed back only for Karai to succeed in intercepting him blocking his attack with the flat of his back. "Karai." He half growled,

"Leonardo. You must leave now." She urged. "now, before this gets work.

"Raiden!" shouted one of the three Umtrom councilors. "You will never win!" He declared with a confidence he wished he truly had. The goa'uld had been a threat, but a thousand years ago their hyperdrive had been so slow.  
The Shinto Kami glared fixing the Umtrom with a loathing filled glare. "Win. Fool I have already won, you are the last of your kind we burned your world to dust long ago and with it the rest of your race. Soon this galaxy will be under my rule," the system lord boasted loudly to them, "there is nothing you can do to stop me, Seiryu." He uttered the word as a blue dragon reared a manifestation of his power it tore apart the area. Lightning cracked the air as thunder burst apart the area around. Raiden flicked his sword firing another blast before tilting his head and smirking. He wanted to laugh, but then he felt them, and he turned his head eyes narrowed. "Constantinos I leave the rest of this to you."

A flurry of shadows appeared from the mass of shadows arose a group of men swathed in black cloaks. The man called Constantinos nodded, "Thank you, we shall be quick, we do not need much." A thousand years ago an Aedra had reached his hand to the Umtrom, and Hircine had sent Sokar against them in response. The Umtrom had made the mistake of attacking other Goa'uld, and as such had brought their own doom on their heads.

"You must leave now if you want to have any chance of surviving this night." Karai urged with great urgency to the turtle she was facing.

"Karai." The system lord called to the Foot Clan's Japan branch leader.  
She turned leaping away from Leonardo to stand beside the Shinto Kami, "Hai Raiden-sama." The ninja responded meekly, the system lord reached out with a gentle hand and ruffled her hair slightly smiling.  
"-sama," The turtle echoed in surprise "Who is this guy Karai?"  
"I am Raiden." Lightning surged around his sword.  
"Raiden no Kami, the god of lightning what the Hell." Exclaimed the Sai wielding turtle in equal surprise to his 'brothers'. "What the hell is going on?" The turtle rushed past Hun and towards the system lord.

"I am the god of storms little turtle." Raiden corrected while knocking the charging turtle into a wall with a blast of lighting fired from the system lord's now outstretched palm. The system lord let his sword release its accumulated energy loose destroying a large cluster of Umtrom stasis pods even as Constantinos walked forward unimpeded by the battle. He, Raiden, didn't care what exactly Sithis wanted, it didn't matter.

Karai stopped the turtle. "Leonardo you and your brothers must leave," she urged again while the system lord and his other half set to destroying the stasis pods.

Raiden stood facing the last group of defenders, he paid no attention to the black swathed men who were waiting for him to leave. Then he uttered a single word and slaughtered the remaining Umtrom guardians. "Byakko." The wind whipped and tore, a vague shape of a tiger of wind visible in the swirling shifting debris, creating a mass of gore and blood.

"You!" A rat, albeit a humanoid rat, one which seemed naggingly familiar to Raiden, it was old, equivocating its lifespan to a human in his sixties or perhaps later, and the creature was glaring at the system lord.

Then it clicked eidetic memory was such a useful thing, "Ah you're that guardian's pet I remember. He was a geneticist like his father, who was also a traitor" He said recognizing where he recognized the creature. "Saki killed him, I remember this. This must have been how many years ago," He shook his head, what were a few years it was pointless to a system lord.

"Master Splinter!" The four turtles exclaimed,

The leader of the foot approached"My lord the Umtrom are dead." The Shredder declared kneeling behind the system lord.

"We're leaving then. There is no reason to stay." The Shinto Kami commented, allowing Karai to breath a sigh of relief. "Come along," He didn't want to be here any longer, certainly not for whatever the Dark Brotherhood were here for.

-scene break-

Moody sat back, "Well the latest pictures are in." he declared, he was a lot more relaxed now. "Tepes got sidelined by who we think is the Speaker responsible for Europe, we think that she, and Tepes, and the kid, the vampire hunter have settled in a house near Derby, we know this because its crawling with the brotherhood, and a bunch of death eater corpses." It'd been all over the muggle news, and the Ministry had tried to cover it up, but when an Executioner killed someone and intended to make a statement out of it, you didn't get to cover it up. Muggle police had been all over it, the news too. "then there is all of what is happening elsewhere, its the end of an era the Daedric lord of Order is rising," His gods had told him to relax, and that was the only reason Moody was this damn calm.

"So?" Bill asked, "Whats next."

Hermione looked up, "I think we should start looking at other angles, found this in Greece," It was a picture, muggle security camera, it was Artemis and Raiden. "Its not a whole lot, but I think its better than anything we have." She added another set of pictures, "then there is this, right now we're only getting cooperation from Europe. Japan is pressuring America not to cooperate with our investigation, and without Ministry cooperation we're not going to get very far."

"And what do you suggest miss Granger?" Dumbledore prodded, "As it is the Order is largely occupied with the matter of Voldemort."

She spread the pictures out, "Bill should set up a branch office in Egypt," Raiden did not have a lot of Egyptian underlords, which saying something as most Goa'uld, had at least a few given Ra's reign. Amongst the Goa'uld Yu, and Ra had always had the most underlords, because of the goa'uld they had controlled the most territory. Yu was patient, and Ra was about dominance. For Raiden he wanted trust, he wanted to know each of his underlords personally. He'd carefully poke and prod, to the point of obsession. "I think that this woman is probably the best lead that we have."

Moody shrugged it wasn't like he had any better suggestions to make. Sirius picked up a photograph and wolf whistled low and long, but didn't say much.

"I see, and Bill do you think that'd be a good idea then?" Dumbledore asked, as it was Voldemort was occupied, he'd been trying to branch more into international, or at least further into Europe as of late. Specifically parts of eastern and central europe. "We know that Voldemort has decided he does not have the resources he desires to contest the ministry, especially in the light of recent defeats of dark forces." Moody snorts, "So perhaps if Bill feels up to it we should consider our own expansion."

Bill flicked through the photos, "That might be the best headmaster, Gringotts is serious about this next series of excavations, and I'll be busy, I'll look into though, I was actually considering taking a guest lecturer opportunity at Cairo that was coming up," He shook his head, "I'll look into it."

-scene break-

In stargate command Carter was currently occupied conversing with the Asgard scientist about recent developments, "Kvasir I don't understand why Raiden was able to make such strides over the other Goa'uld?" She stated, "Wouldn't they have noticed he was advancing over them? I mean if Raiden went to war with Susanoo, and Ra, should they have seen that kind of shift."

"It is because the Goa'uld treat everything the same," He replied "they respond to things the same way," The asgard gave his race's equivalent of a shrug, a gesture so subtle it was largely missed, "they see Raiden as one them, they think he will act the same way they will if he has a better ship he will use them immediately in an attempt to secure an advantage over the others." He paused for a moment, "Instead Raiden bided his time, just like Yu has done rather than conquering his opposition he used weapons that were only a fraction more powerful than what the other system lords had and kept his most powerful ships, with the exception of the Shinku Rai Tatsu's in reserve, up until half a century ago, the other system lords, were only aware of the Shinku Rai Tatsu, the Type Three Ha'tak, the Skyborne Calamity and its two subclasses. Of these it was the Skyborne Calamity they concerned themselves with, three times the system lords petitioned for the design, and he refused three times. The last time was two hundred years ago, when Yu Huang Shang Ti began to produce them at his homeworld."

Jack sat up a little straighter, that was definitely news to him. "Woah woah, woah Kassie Two?" He pressed, "We only knew of one."  
"There are two the second are sixty meters longer than the Dark Heaven Harbringer subclass, they are kept mainly regaled to defense of the middle rim and inner worlds. And the other ships are the Rashomon, and the Type Four Ha'tak."

The colonel groaned, "Rashomon?" He inquired, "Type Four?" He really didn't like the sound of that, "We haven't encountered either of those."

"With good reasons no doubt the Rashomon is easily mistaken for a space station," Kvasvir responded, "the type four is a rarely produced sub class of the Goa'uld Ha'tak Battleship, it is almost entirely utilized by Raiden, they are about the size of the regular Ha'tak Flagship model but is similar in design to the type three, both the Flight Four and the Rashomon are regaled for defensive duties of Raiden's inner worlds. In fact the Rashomon unless it is one of Raiden's allies, or Ra is regarded as a myth amongst the Goa'uld System Lords." He continued bringing up the system schematics for one of Raiden's worlds, "In fact a great portion of Raiden's technology does not appear to be from the Goa'uld technological 'tree'. These systems like Anubis's designs appear to be heavily influenced by ancient technology," Kvasir paused. "It is strongly suspected that Amaterasu's design bureau developed the Tun'cma'le Ha'tak from the Type four Ha'tak."

"Tun'cma'le?" Jack groaned, he recognized the name of course, but he really hoped it didn't mean what he thought it meant.

Doctor Jackson confirmed causing Jack to groan again, "Super or great, Those new ships Yu has started deploy recently." Stated Daniel.

"Indeed that is correct Daniel Jackson. The Type four and indeed the Tun'cma'le Ha'tak share several several features including an extended and modified Hangar structure," He declared, "originally the Asgard were unsure of the purpose, when we originally encountered such structure changes onboard Raiden's type threes and his other warships, it was not until we first encountered the mobile suit that we realized what the new hangars were for, like the type three the two Ha'tak classes share another feature improved amarments and defensive technology. The first type fours showed much higher shield capabilities than we beilieved the Ha'tak designs at the time were capable of."  
"What do you mean Ha'tak?"

"We are unsure why but the Ha'tak and Raiden's other warships are much different in their shield capabilities, as I suggested a different technological base deriving from the ancient technology, though the source of resources has eluded us." The Tauri were, quite appropriately in shock at the news. For something to elude the asgard's powerful sensors spoke highly of the other side's countermeasures "Yes we were as noticeably distressed." Kvasir's head bobbed up and down

"That is distressing." The pentagon liason officer swallowed, "Uh General Hammond, shouldn't we ask Kvasir about you know what?"

The Texan nodded. "You're right Major Davis. Kvasir we were wondering, one of our worlds Governments, the People's Republic of China, is very insistent about revealing the existence of alien civilizations."

The Asgard paused, "I am unsure of this course of action, a large percent of your world's population are in some way direct results of the Goa'uld, to say nothing of the fact that they in fact already know about the existence of alien civilizations,"

Hammond nodded, they knew this, "and there was one other thing Kvasvir, I know your not supposed to interfere, but recently a military intelligence facility was attacked," He began reaching for a folder, "And we thing that maybe the Ancients had something to do with this," He broke the security seal, and gingerly handed it to the skinny gray alien, "if you could look at these pictures, maybe see if our translations are correct about the ancient."  
"This is not Alteran, this is Ayelied. The mark does mean order, and it is as in your language a proper noun, but it refers to a House, a noble lineage if you would understand it that way."

Chapter Conclusion

Helltanz's Notes: So I gave some additional information


	27. Chapter 27

Chapter 27

Lightning Fervor

Helltanz's Notes: The populous of Earth does know Aliens exist, what they don't know is all the different aliens out there, or about the Stargate, but to the Chinese they think they need reveal the existence of the Stargate program and more importantly the existence of Goa'uld in order to prepare for a possible invasion or attack.

-Chapter begin-

This was as far as things went one of the more interesting explorations that SG1 had been on, well it had been until some minor prick of a goa'uld had shown up. O'neil checked, rather pointlessly, the alien weapon he'd gotten out of the gene locked arms locker. It'd been a rather necessary thing, originally they hadn't messed with the weapons, then the goa'uld had shown up, and cut them off from the camp, and they'd run drive after the first eighty jaffa.

SG1 had originally thought that this had just been ancient ruins, it turned out that it'd been a ship... and that it wasn't an Alteran design, it belonged to, as the asgard put it, their Kin the Ayelied. Long ago like the Asgard and the Vanir had, the Ayelied, and Asgard had been bitter rivals, relatives, and at times even enemies. Finding it was a major windfall, and would be a key discovery that would certainly help prove the SGC to congress. No invasions had yet threatened earth this year, that had actually been a joke that Cronus had cracked during his meeting with the SGC. The system lord had meant it in a friendly manner supposedly, but well it hadn't been funny. In any event SG1 had after surveying the ruins radioed back the SGC Alpha site.

They'd been exploring a few days and then the prick had shown up, succeeding in scattering the assembled stargate personnel, but not before they'd launched a subspace beacon. Right now the Tauri Starfleet was overhead, their first real entry into a real battle against anything more than a token goa'uld force.

Overhead there were at least seven Ha'tak, their attacker had originally planned on landing three, though that had been scrapped. Teal'c had said they were mainly third and fourth rate vessels, which strictly speaking gave their own Ha'taks. Their Prometheus-class vessels on the other hand were going to get a work out. The main reason that the SGC ship design problem was the replicating of anti capital ship scale guns. It was true that their captured Ha'taks provided them with working examples, but really there was only so much that could be done. Right now though those big honking space guns weren't helping the ground situation.

A jaffa came around the corner O'neill hefted the alien weapon and squeezed, Carter had speculated it was some form of photon, or plasma based weapon. All O'neill cared about at the moment was that it was damned useful for killing things. The weapon discharged a cone of light rather light a shotgun, and burned a wide spread through the Jaffa's upper torso dropping him like a stone, well what as left of him.

Teal'c nodded, "The ancients created a very useful weapon."  
"It takes some getting used to," O'neill grunted. "but yeah its a kickass alien shotgun."

The jaffa nodded again, "It seems that the battle in space is going well for us," So Jack had heard over the radio, the Enterprise was currently occupying the enemy enough that the Prometheus might be able to actually drop down towards the planet and provide some close range support. It was of critical importance they keep this ship out of goa'uld hands.

-scene break-

Once again he was here on the top floor of the Foot Headquarters here on Earth, from his vantage point Raiden looked down from the Foot New York City Headquarters specifically at where the TCRI building had once been. The blasted Tauri reporters, and government agencies wer all crowded around the crater. Constantinos must have gotten whatever it wasa he'd been wanting, Sithis had been oddly tight lipped so Raiden hadn't pressed the issue, at least once Sokar had shown up in orbit.

The system lord's eyes made a cursuroy sweep of the city scape. Raiden turned to face the Shredder. "Saki ignore the turtles, now that the last of the Umtrom have been slain, I want you to redirect your activities to discretely gather information on the Hoktar popoulous particularly the nearest community, and as always be vigilant of the Shinso."

"Hai Raiden-sama." The leader of the Foot ninja bowed.

"And Saki I emphasize the use of discretion in your task," The system lord stated, "Tepes is on the planet." Raiden allowed the statement to hang in the air, allowing it to sink in.

The Shredder didn't respond for a moment, "Master?" He exclaimed in mild shock, he didn't particularly like being anywhere near the listener of the crimson scar.

"I believe I understand the root of your surprise," He announced maintaining his gaze on the standing leader of the foot clan, "I am aware of your objection."

Saki collected himself, "Raiden-sama Tepes's results cannot be denied but his methods are beyond reproach. He is completely with out moderation, he will surely draw attetention to your plans with his pointless bloodshed, my lord."

Raiden knew this and in all honesty there was nothing that could be done, "I admit have little expectation for Tepes to restrain his lust for blood for very much longer, he is rash, this rashness of his will draw attention away from sensitive areas, and garner the templar into showing themselves. I should assume that is part of Sithis's plans, but I cannot truly say for certain, and in truth nor do I care." As long as Tepes stayed across the pond he hoped it would keep attention away from the new world.

"I understand Raiden-sama." The shredder nodded in understandingif Tepes was to draw attention in order to draw out the Knights of the Nine in order to destroy them well perhaps such was a wise course. Without their prescence and with the recent destruction of the Umtrom, Raiden's forces would be able to operate much more freely and resolve their tasks with much lower risks of a capable enemy interfering. "Once the Templar have been dealt with are we to move against the Shinso, My lord?"  
"NO," He responded more forcefully than he intended, in truth he had no idea what Sokar intended or if he was even involved with the Shinso, though he did suspect it. "not quite then I wish to resolve the conflict with Anubis first and strengthen my forces after this conflict ends." The leader of the foot bowed. "Once this has been done we will move on." He dismissed the leader of the foot to carry out his assigned task of keeping an eye on the local hok'tar population.

The system lord leaned back propping against the wall and starred over the city, Karai was obviously familiar with the turtles on some level that greatly annoyed him, but he would permit them to live for the time being at least.

He stared at the crater... and wondered precisely what Constantinos had done.

-scene break-

Constantinos was kneeling, he'd erected this small shrine in the manse constructed in Bayville. The girl had spent the last half hour mocking his dedicated praying to the Dread Father, and while it annoyed him he'd been silent. He'd held his tongue because strictly speaking Sithis was occupied with other things, "So why are you praying?"  
The man rose his robes ruffling but making no noise, "Did you know that Jyggalag awoke, this era dies." He uttered, "Did you know this? As all things must, but Jyggalag is the god of Order, Sithis's most loyal ally. Long ago they were teacher and student, but that was long ago, I worry, as is my place."

"What are you talking about?"

He sat back on the pew, "Jyggalag so powerful was he that a collection of the other gods long ago bound him, this was after the War in Heaven. They created Sheogorath the anti thesis of everything Jyggalag stood for." Then he reached into his pocket, and presented the fourteen inch tablet computer, which itself was testament to just how large a man Constantinos was. "This whole nation is a powder keg, such a volatile little world this is, and yes I mean little, I have seen the worlds ruled over, I have seen Sithis's homeworld in all the splendor of the old gods, and of the Ayelied, its countless spires and the forests of yore. " He sighed wistfully, "The dread father will show you, one day, of that I'm sure, but there is another task, in another town in this nation Phobos seeks his sister, but also seeks to battle 5 guardians wielding the heart of the world forged by the death of Mehunes Dagon and Akatosh," Seeing her blank look, "and his is why I tell you this, for Mehunes Dagon was a Daedric Lord, and Akatosh was the Aedric dragon god of time it was the last major time an Aedra died at the hands of a Daedra."

"So what exactly?"  
"You should know this because such knowledge has been lost to this world for so long, and because of that your world cannot comprehend of how its defenses are lacking," He said, "you should understand I am sure your professor Xavier does indeed mean well, but even he can know little of what has been lost. For your own safety."

Rogue sat back and tapped the screen, she groaned, and she thought that the freaking Xmen uniforms were ridiculous, and well as far as things went well if not for the clear theme, and fairly identical physical modifications she could see how some might assume they were just bang babies. "Hey what about this whole defrosting Captain America thing," That was probably the main reason she figured Constantinos was sticking around that whole debacle with Wolverine and Magneto recently,

"Arkay's chosen, and SHIELD? Hardly the concern of the brotherhood," It was a boldfaced lie, "You shouldn't worry about it, I am sure the matter will resolve itself."

-scene break-

Raiden's eyes swept the homeworld command facility particularly one of the nearby consoles. Things were going as scheduled, seeing as Anubis had decided to deploy the Kull Warriors, Raiden had retaliated by first arming his troops with weapons to neutralize the life given to the kull warriors by the Alteran device, the second and now beginning full circulation amongst the Shinto System Lord's forces was the upgrade to said forces personal armor. He was however growing increasingly angry by Sokar beating him to this upgrading of his troops.

The armor was no one specific color, the sensitive materials changed color base on setting, and several models of the armor were produced. The armors had the added benefit of being well suited to enclosed environment, a benefit to pilots to be sure.

Despite the armors benefit it was unlikely the others would choose to follow suit at least not any time soon, the cybernetic armors were difficult to produce in comparison to that of the traditional and mundane chain mail that was traditional of the mainstay of most Jaffa. Even for his units this would remain the case save for those frontline divisions.

The armor was a great benefit on the ground capable of resisting, even the most basic model, several discharges from the Kull warrior's standard weapon, and about twice that many of staff blasts in quick succession. The armors durability increased with rank, and each increase added more useful features, the most advanced even possessed personal shields, something he was loath to say other goa'uld had done. He'd even considered armors designed for more specialized tasks. He smiled, shock troops equipped with this armor would be useful in forcing enemy Jaffa formations into rout in any event which would be beneficial.

"No word from Morrigan?"  
Raiden's mood soured, and glared at the minor goa'uld who'd spoken up, as he reached to finger the ayelied glove resting on a table, for a minute he considered seriously slipping the weapon on and using the plasma caster to kill the little nuisance. He had hoped that given how Baal was pressing on her border Morrigan might be amenable to a certain arrangement, thus far though he'd heard nothing, and it rather infuriated him. As it was he'd finally begun selecting designs to take prescedence. Yu had warned about this particular problem, but even the Jade Emperor was starting to hit the edge of his supply chain, but then again so had Anubis. They did expect some kind of battle as from all intelligence Anubis was massing for a thrust to at least keep them further off guard.

Right now Yu was busy constructing fresh Skyborne Calamity, and as the tauri called them 'Super Ha'taks'.

Anubis's new ships were also proving to have a significant edge. These new ships were dangerous, and truth be told Raiden was growing increasingly concerned over just how much ancient meddling was going on behind the scenes. He'd even heard that the SGC had begun mass producing anti Kull warrior weapons, something that should have been undoable without a copy of Telchak's notes, or the original ancient device, which Raiden had been sure that Anubis had destroyed centuries ago in conflict with Telchak.

-scene break-

As soon as the battle had been won the SGC had wasted little time attempting to sanitize the situation, even if it had meant calling the NID. It was true that they were all on the same side, especially given this recent attack on the SHIELD Facility, which the anthropology, and xeno archeology departments of the SGC were working double time to look into. There was still no idea what exactly had been inside the artifact stolen, though the asgard suspected it was some kind of data or control crystal for what they could not say.

Jack looked up at the sky, and flexed his gloved hand. The weapon was thought controlled interfacing to sensors in the glove to project a heads up display of sorts into the mind. It certainly made sense now where Anubis was getting some of his toys, of course the Kull weapons were linked to a targetting system built into the helmet which were a bit modified, but the helmet also dealt with a lot more environmental information. "So is it actually the Ayelied."  
The Asgard's head bobbed, "That is indeed the case, while the replicator problem has indeed been dealt with O'neill I must caution you even with the armies, and fleets of the systems lords focused on the matter of this civil war," Thor began to caution, but O'neill waved him off.

"Believe me I know buddy," He commented, "Right now the eggheads are hoping to actually get some useful directed energy weapons," well ones that could be used to fight Ha'tak. "well ones we can actually mount on the new daedalus class," They had mounted one of the Prometheus's sister ships with a test bed of weapons based on the alkesh's weapons somewhat modified, and it had been fairy effective, but as it was the homebuilt first and second generation Tauri Naquadah powerplants just couldn't reliably provide the energy needed to power anti capital ship guns.

"Your new class is still an important development, and with the replicators gone the asgard fleet may yet be able to deter further Goa'uld meddling."

Jack nodded, "Yeah well thanks for running Zeus off, I think," As it was he hadn't heard all the details, but up until recently Cronus had had his son Zeus imprisoned in Tartarus, Daniel had found the irony hilarious apparently, but Zeus had managed to escape, and had attempted to make his way to contact earth, for what nobody could say. Kvasir would had been hanging around had run him off fairly quickly.  
"In any event O'neill, this particular Ayelied vessel is quite old I should think that even as primitive as it is this dreadnought should be of great use to teaching your shipwrights how to construct warships." Apparently the asgard considered the closest translation to the original ancient word to be dreadnought. The navy's representative had all but had a fit considering he'd been touring the mobile armor bay at the time, but it did make sense given the promience of large scale guns, the ones that were intact anyway, on the hull of the ship.

-scene break-

Roughly considered as the 'Northern' portion of Goa'uld space approximately the border there was a very narrow strip of worlds between border realms seized by both Raiden and Anubis's armies. This particular area of space was unique as it had a small strip of systems, which belonged to neither of the powerful system lords. A buffer zone, as it was at least for the mean time.

The system's invasion had been more than a tad daring, and very foolish, for one launched by such a minor Goa'uld taking system a system on the border between the two mightiest of the system lords. Both of the system lords had mistaken this for a sudden mobilization by their rivals, and now they looked rather silly staring at each other guns warmed up.

Raiden eyed Anubis's ships, neither fleet had moved since their arrival both fleets hovering in the void of space a waiting the upcoming show of force, and Raiden could foresee Tsukuyomi was becoming quickly devoid of what little patience she possessed. In between the two system lord contingents was the minor Goa'uld's fleet.

Her host's face appeared on the screen, "Raiden what are we waiting for!" She demanded in truth

Raiden glanced at his fellow Shinto System Lord, lady in this case, and gave an infuriatingly calm smirk. "Calm yourself, being rash will not settle this matter with a favorable outcome." Thankfully one of the fleet officers interrupted before the discussion could continue.

"Lord Raiden Anubis's fleet is moving."

He nodded, "Weapons release all units advance." Raiden and Anubis's fleet went into action nigh simultaneously, firing on the minor Goa'uld lord's fleet. Both system lords could very much appreciate the effeciency of each others guns, and Raiden appreciated this opportunity to watch Anubis's ships in action.

The destruction was absolute and the tense staring match resumed. Baal's arrogant façade appeared. "Ah Raiden it has been a while." Truthfully it hadn't the latest goa'uld summit, Moloc's blustering announcement had not been that long ago.

"Baal." Raiden remarked calmly,

"Baal!"

Anubis's lieutenant lips twitched no doubt resisting the urge to frown at the situation, "Ah Tsukuyomi you're here as well… how nice."

Raiden ran a hand along his console in a bored manor. "Where is Anubis?"

"He's elsewhere?"  
That picqued his interest, Baal was commanding one of Anubis's fleets, that was rather an interesting turn of events, well so much in that none of the ships bore Baal's mark on them. "Is he now? Are you nervous Baal?"

"Don't be ridiculous, what reason would I have to be nervous." The other goa'uld declared, " You have rushed into an engagement, I should think that in this particular engagement you are distinctly unprepared."

Raiden was tempted to sneer; Tsukuyomi didn't bother to resist the impulse and did.

"Tsukuyomi do not act rashly." Cautioned Raiden "Then as Anubis's envoy you will uphold the agreement. We will withdraw you are to do the same."

Baal as arrogant as he may have been didn't need telling twice. Raiden sat backwards, in truth while he longed to take the system he knew that he didn't have the supply line to hold it against an assault. Neither did Anubis, but it'd be a pointless expenditure of resources, particularly manpower.

-scene break-

Truthfully he didn't quite understand this session for the United Nations security council conference. Originally they, the Tauri, had considered just the permanent members being involved but then they'd decided to have the entire council present, elected members included. It seemed a rather stupid thing to be having here in New York.

"We must reveal the existence of the Goa'uld," The Chinese representative declared, "so the people may prepare for the inevitable."

"Prepare for the inevitable what?" Raiden's entrance had more than its usual flair and a much more awe inspiring affect, the system lord remarked materialized in stunning bolt of lightning.

"Raiden." The Base Leader of the US Stargate Command greeted, no doubt he had been brought in as an 'expert' witness concerning the program.

The system lord smiled, truthfully he thought this a waste of time, but it was either he come or Cronus, and he was getting tired of Cronus mucking about on Earth. In truth he was at the point that he wished that Yu, or Heru'ur had been available to do this, but better he do this than Cronus, "General Hammond."

"I take it you know this person general?" inquired the Arab representative on the Security Council. The old man was not as steady as he had been, no surprising considering normal people didn't show up in a flash of lightning and he was hardly the only one. The thundercrack of his arrival had disturbed many.

"This is the System Lord Raiden."

"He is one of the ruling members of the Goa'uld governing body." Stated the Chinese representative with good reason to be eying Raiden nervously.

Raiden eyes glowed as a surge of magic passed through them, the man who had been standing during his tirade took a step back instinctively. It was a childish trick, but easily worth the amusment it brought.

Major Davis cleared his throat. "We're surprised you decided to show up."  
"Really," He murmured smiling slightly. "I know the Asgard are somewhat busy, they are at the moment otherwise distracted by those last bit of troublesome Alteran toys at the moment the problem is being resolved so you needn't fret. So I decided to handle Earth for this little matter."

Hammond quirked an eyebrow, Thor had relayed that the last of the replicators should have been destroyed "The Replicators?"

"As I said, you needn't worry general I have been assured that the Asgard have dealt with the situation." he stated in a reassuring tone. In truth even if the Asgard had already dealt with the replicator problem, which was possible, and in fact they had even if he didn't know it, it hardly mattered. Raiden turned to face the delegation. "I fail to see how revealing the existence of the Goa'uld is a problem, your populous already is aware of the existence of life on other worlds about time, subconsciously they must acknowledge the fact a power beyond this world intervened to stop the Thanagarians and their foolish invasion." That had been fun, "It is not so much the revelation but your reason you believe that earth is in danger, you would merely be creating panic if you revealed the existence of the Goa'uld and that you fear an imminent attack from Anubis."  
"Earth is facing an Imminent Threat of Invasion." Stated the Chinese representative punctuating each word by slamming his fist on the wood table that the permanent security council shared.

Raiden was unimpressed by the declaration. "The threat to earth is hardly imminent. Anubis has made no preparations toward any world in this area of space, he is far to occupied with fortifying his positions and the occasional minor skirmish. He is likewise the other system lords is awaiting the beginning of major hostilities. And these minor skirmishes are well away from earth on the opposite side of Goa'uld space. This war does not involve the Tauri unless you chose to become involved in it. Anubis Kull warriors and mobile armors, his Ha'tak nor his Jaffa have made active pursuits against this world if anything, it is the forces of Earth who are the aggressors." Chastised the System lord, personally he found it amusing though at times irritating. " Anubis and his allies are focused on the much more pressing issue of the other System lords." Well Yu, and himself at least, then he noticed the Tauri security personnel were starting to scurry about.

"Uh excuse me sir," A security guard said stepping past him, "We've got a class 7 security breach, we're under attack." The man was calm, which was surely a good trait to have given the building had been breached by super powered individuals "We have already sent a distress call to the Justice League."

Still it seem too little too late, the building shook as a red armored figure plowed through the doors of the meeting room. The various Security detachments fired their weapons to no avail.

"You can't stop the juggernaut." Declared the giant red armored figure as he just soaked up the gun fire.

"Well this is an interesting turn of events." Muttered the system lord. Raiden turned to the security guards who were reloading. "Don't bother."

"What?"  
Raiden didn't bother to respond and simply unleashed a blast of lightning the rapid expansion of air and superheated bolt of plasma sent Kurt Marko flying. "Your weapons will be useless he is drawing his power from an artifact which belonged to the Goa'uld Cyttorak, your fire arms are quiet useless." He'd never actually gotten the chance to examine Cyttorak's work closely before the goa'uld had vanished into exile, so this was a prime opportunity.

"Why You!" The juggernaut lifts one of the destroyed doors over his head, which was no small feat all things considered, in preparation to strike the system lord. Raiden levitated the giant into the air with a glance. "Hey! Put me down you dress wearing…"

Raiden drew his hand back towards the array of seats and slammed the juggernaut head first, vanishing the juggernauts helmet a moment before impact, this of course lead to a particularly bad case of whiplash for Professor X's half brother.

Jack perked up, great more goa'uld junk stashed around earth, and in the hand of criminals too as if Thanagarian junk wasn't bad enough. "I can't say were familiar with that Goa'uld?" inquired O'neill.  
"It would not be surprising Cyttorak was a minor Goa'uld he was exiled aproximately one thousand and sixty four years ago in a conflict with Sokar. I believe his first prime's spine still adorns the entry way arch of Sokar's audience hall." Raiden absentmindly flicked his fingers causing the Juggernaut to sink into the now molten ground. Strictly speaking Raiden couldn't actually remember what offense had sparked Sokar and Cyttorak's little disagreement.

Several world leaders looked a tad ill at the brutal revelation. 'I thought that was what it was.' Thought O'neill remembering Sokar's interesting taste in décor. "so uhm we're going to leave him stuck there right?"

The building rocked violently again. He didn't like that sign at all. This apparent attack on the building by what appeared to be a group of what were likely, excluding the Juggernaut, Hok'tar, was far too convenient.

The incoming blast of fire was swallowed by a sudden surge of water. Two playing cards came flying through the air widening the entranceway as they exploded. His shield flared angrily at the explosion, well it wasn't like he liked this silly building anyway. Raiden examined the new guests, one appeared to have living metal armor for skin, the second judging by his field could control magnetic fields similar if in a less capacity to Raiden and was the apparent leader, the next had a pair of wrist mounted flame throwers, his ability was to control flame obvious, the next was a card wielding Cajun and the final was Sabretooth. Two plumes of light appeared beside Raiden, and judging from his growing migraine Sithis had reason to intervene in this battle.

"General Hammond perhaps you would like to be introduced to one of your counter parts, Tsukasa General of Dreams," Tsukasa dressed similarly to Raiden save color, his clothes were light blues and white.

"I don't believe we have met, I am particularly interested to hear your excuse for interrupting a diplomatic summit."

Sabretooth simply charged, much to Magneto's displeasure who was willing to talk to the system lord after his impressive counter offensive. Tsukasa interceded first, a blast of white energy sent the feral Hok'tar flying and impacted against the wall with a sickening crunch. Pyro responded with an attempted attack Tsukasa; a mass of shadowy tentacles tore the flame throwers from the mutants back.

The building rocked again from yet another seismic disturbance. "Perhaps going outside would be a good idea, I doubt the building can take much more of this."Not that he particularly cared about the building A blockish spiral, the japanese symbol meaning thundergate, expands out from Raiden's feet. Outside the United Nations Headquarters was where the assembled delegates and the intruders appeared after the light faded.

"uh with respsect, lord Raiden." the 'younger' of the two generals began indicating a potential problem.  
"Yes Tsukasa I see it." It stood about three stories tall a large imposing robot; well it was imposing to humans not to Raiden however who too had equally large but far more deadly mobiles suits.

"That's not one of ours." O'neill stated, though there were development programs in the work for battle mechs.

He nodded, "I am aware of that." Acknowledged the system lord.

The Sentinel fired on Magneto first, surprisingly enough, who was still to close to the delegates, an energy barrier flared to life, "Your not going to blow that thing up from orbit are you?" O'neill asked fiddling with the ancient shield projector.

Raiden didn't answer, focusing his attention on the Hok'tar who were approaching. The system lord's communicator activated. "Lord Raiden."  
"Shredder you are to protect the Hok'tar from this aggravating automaton," He ordered to the shinobi leader, "do not allow a single one to be captured." The system lord ordered furiously

"Yes my lord."

The Sentinel fired again, and again the blast was absorbed. "Perhaps if you freed Juggernaut we could resolve the situation." Stated Magneto.

"I have a better solution." Raiden eyes clouded over and a large tornado descended from the now very dark clouds onto the sentinel tearing it apart. The winds subsided and the pieces fell to the earth. "And as to answer your question O'neill no I would not bother with such an excessive amount of force. Rei did you locate the broadcast origin."

"Yes lord Raiden."  
Raiden smirked "Wonderful." He remarked "I am quite interested into find who did build this thing," and kill them, thus far the tauri mech programs had all been rather disjointed, something he was quite grateful for.

The facade of the United Nations Headquarters was certainly a wreck. "My, my this is such a nuisance." It certainly taken the Justice League long enough to actually show up. Not that it mattered, they were here now. A pair of Javelin Sevens had begun their descent, and were decloaking and deploying members of the Justice league.

"This is unacceptable, Rei be an dear... send additional forces down, Hok'tar units preferably."

"Acknowledged lord Raiden."

A squadron of mobile suits pierced through the atmosphere. Truthfully he expected this too touch off some pathetic whining about the Justice League, and that was something he hoped to head off, He watched as the mobile suits settled around on overwatch, with the Javelins. "Now can we discuss this little issue like civilized beings? Providence Legend you are to secure any Hok'tar in combat actions."

Green Lantern stepped forward, looking at everyone, "So that leaves this altercation needing to be explained." John Stewart was the ranking leaguer on the scene, and he had a kryptonian backing him up, so he was pretty confident he could handle the situation, as long as it stayed calm, "So why don't you guys do that seeing as the big robot that was attack is out of the picture?"

Raiden tapped his ear, "Rin I would like a status report," he requested as he turned away from the group, in truth he didn't particularly care for whatever explanations were forthcoming so long as the attacks stopped. On the plus side Saki's observation reports from months ago were proving to be useful.

"We received intelligence that this was an anti mutant meeting." Conceded Magneto, it seemed the information he had received was incorrect.

"So that gives the-"

Raiden spared a glance at the French ambassador irritably, "You will be silent and allow Magnus continue." The Frenchman instantly went quiet under the scolding glare, but it was the mutant who looked more interested.

"How did you know my name?"  
"Your name is Erik Magnus Lehnshererr, named for your father's brother, born 1928, interned in Auswitchz after the polish ghetto uprising, and liberated in 1944." Personally Raiden never quite understood exactly the human motivation for the Holocaust it'd seemed rather stupid all things considered. "I can give you a detailed biography on anyone here." The Silver dragoon armed mobile suit returned depositing a group of gel encased mutants. He looked up inquiringly at the war machine.

"Paramilitary forces were attempting to aprehend the hok'tar I utilized non lethal methods."

Another blast of energy slammed across the ancient energy shield that O'neill had protected. The shield flared, ablating, deflecting the crimson energy emanating from the Scarlet Witch.

"This is becoming troublesome." He commented with some irritation, "I have a diplomatic solution. Shinku Rai Tatsu Recovery now."

A bright aura of white energy cascaded over the area. "Where are we?"

"Welcome aboard SRT-01 Shinku Rai Tatsu. We are currently in orbit above New York City."

"Were on a space ship this is soo cool." Stated Nightcrawler porting about the deck.

Raiden spared the blue mutant a look of irritation, "Technically it is a battleship," He preferred the distinction, "I would appreciate it if you would not teleport around my bridge."

"Eh sorry."

John Stewart looked over one of the consoles, but the SGC's pentagon liason beat him to the all important question, "So what now?" inquired Major Davis.

Raiden sat down on his throne. "Well we could move to the conference room." After some discussion between those present he stood up and led the way. The room was used primarily for military briefings, but it was set up to accommodate conferences, which was useful in the current situation. It did also give a sense of professionalism to meetings.

Everyone took their seats; the room reflected more on Sithis, given it had an almost gothic architecture appearance, than the designs of Japanese architecture common of a Shinto system lord, not that it mattered there were no obvious markings to reveal it. Of course when the Shinku Rai Tatsu the sheer shift away from traditional goa'uld architecture and design had annoyed him.

Raiden's eyes swept the Hok'tar. 'An imposter how interesting I am surprised the Adimantium one hasn't realized it yet, the shape shifter no less.' He still had not gotten a response on just how these two had warning markers on their files.

'Professor Xavier' was the first to inquire. "Exactly who are you?"

"I am Raiden. Though occasionally I am known by other names,"The System lord reclined in his chair smugly, "Of course it isn't uncommon for one of us to have many names. Though usually we tend to abide using our preferred name the most."

O'neill rolled his eyes.

"So as to address the issue of why we were interrupted again, so I shall recap you do need to be prepared if you will be half as useful to this world as I imagine. Under normal circumstances this meeting would have been conducted with one of the Aesir present as they are Earth's primary defenders," and all things considered Raiden legitimately would have preferred at least one member to have been present for just the sake of decorum, "as it is however they are otherwise occupied, with a small matter in their principle dominion. I am to the main problem has been dealt with, however they are merely being cautious, thus I came to delegate the matter." He didn't bother elaborating attempting to explain the history of the replicators was probably a pointless waste of time to the humans of earth, "The People's Republic of China believes that the populous of earth should be made aware of the existence of certain powers that exist among them myself, or more importantly to the Chinese Government Anubis, who they erroneously believe poses an imminent threat," He snorted the idiots continuing to put pressure on the other nations who had been discussing the Stargate was why he was here, wasting his valuable time. "they are convinced Anubis intends to launch an invasion of this world." Raiden surveyed the room. "Personally I hardly care about this worlds day to day politics, if you choose to reveal the powers that be that is not terribly concerning of me. I do not believe Anubis is capable of launching a successful attack against this world anytime with in the next six months, after that I cannot be positive however it is unlikely he will attack at the moment he is other wise occupied dealing with the others of my faction and myself of course." All things considered in six months he expected to be have churned out a fresh line of standardized ships, "I cannot say that Anubis's actions are completely unmerited however he and his faction's actions are our concern and does not at the moment concern earth."

"Can't you just get Ra or uh Osiris deal with Anubis."

He blinked in a bit of surprise, but then again it made since that they didn't know he supposed if they didn't know about the stargate in general, "Ra's power base has been shattered, his dominion thrown into disarray. As for Osiris he along with Baal are Anubis's top lieutenants, I fail to see how either could persuade Anubis and his faction to cease their actions."

"Isn't Osiris Anubis's dad or something?" asked Kitty Pryde perking up from where she'd been settled down.  
Raiden raised an eyebrow, he didn't understand how such things could be confused as it was, no, "He is Anubis younger brother actually, and," with good reason, "he is also one Anubis's more loyal supporters," As it was truth be told he was following after Anubis like a loyal pet, with good reason. Where Baal still had his own holdings, Osiris was rather dependent on Anubis for forces.

The SGC were, or rather Daniel was jotting down notes as fast as possible, he wasn't the only one many of the representatives were taking notes to report to their respective governments.

"Daniel what are you doing?"  
"Taking down notes on what Raiden is saying we might learn something."

"Oh come on." Protested the Alteran gene carrier. "The goa'uld like to hear themselves talk, Cronus talks all the damn time when he is here."  
"He's right sir we might learn something about the Goa'uld."

Jack leaned back shaking his head, "Not you to Carter." Groaned O'neill. "We already knew all that."

"Daniel Jackson and Samantha Carter may have a point O'neill, underneath the Rhetoric we may yet learn something." Stated the former first prime of Apophis.

"What do you think general?"  
"I'm inclined to agree with them Jack we might learn something, we do kind of know nothing about Raiden's faction and little more than Anubis's faction." Whispered the Texan general.

He looked at his other guests ignoring the members of the SGC, he'd heard that there were complaints about the superpowered population, but this could be problematic, "So to elaborate on what I have gathered on your reason for interrupting the summit, you believed the governments were planning to move against the rather vast Hok'tar portion of the populous." The mutants understood the word through the context of the sentence, as it was it hardly mattered to him. "I suppose the idea isn't totally farfetched, humans do tend to be quiet foolish at times. Hmm. Which indicates a third faction interfered, providing you with false information, in order to lure you into a trap."  
Wolverine looked up, "Trask. Bolivar Trask." He announced, "Thats my bet who pulled this off."

"So what about Allah?" interjected the Pakistani representative, "Surely you should not have us believe he is an alien?"

"I am not quite sure he vanished about one thousand years ago after he defeated Slaanesh. Truth to confess I was otherwise occupied so paying attention to Allah wasn't nessacarily my highest concern." Conceded Raiden, and he hadn't been not during that time, not with Sokar busy mucking about the whole galaxy. "He and fleet simply vanished with the majority of his populous, though it was fairly surprising at the time he was one of the more powerful system lords."

Daniel definitely wrote that down.

"Well if the Tauri do decide to reveal the existence of the System Lords, it should not cause to much trouble. Though according to the agreements between everyone, and by everyone I mean the Tauri, the Aesir and the System Lords. The Stargates are to remain in United States Air Force custody. Cronus would have a fit, if it didn't."

Shadow Cat looked up at him confused. "Isn't Cronus locked up?"

"No, why?"

"Never mind."

It took him a minute before he came to the most likely when Zeus had long ago managed to dethrone Cronus for a few centuries, "Ah your thinking of Zeus's rebellion, no he was held for a short period of time, and then he managed to escape, and Zeus nearly got cleaved in half by Cronus adimantium scythe, and the resulting civil war did extensive damage to the Olympian and Titanic Pantheon's power base. Cronus is one of the only remaining one, Ares was recently dealt with he was affiliated with Anubis," Ares had quickly thrown in with Anubis once it had leaked that Zeus had escaped," He tapped a console bringing the hologram, "Of the others, hmm Hermes is a minor system lord, and member of the neutral faction he is allied with Sokar." That had always been a weird alliance in Raiden's opinion, "Artemis affiliated with me after the rebellion. For Zeus though he is in Exile. The muses are affiliated with Shiva, who is oddly a member of the Neutral faction, Isolationist would be more appropriate."

"And the other Greek Gods?"  
"It varies most have ended up siding with the neutral faction, Anubis is affiliated with a few and the same about myself. Some are in Exile. It varies, when we left Earth some just vanished."

Col Chekov looked up. "Exactly how are the other system lord's?"

"…" Raiden glanced at the Russian Air Force Colonel, it was a valid question to ask given all of this. "To be precise it is tumultuous, my own Faction and Anubis's Faction have been at one another's throat. What Remains of Ra's Faction is quickly collapsing, or folding into Heru'ur's domain, the Neutral faction is the only one which has not engaged in major combat activities. Though the non affiliated system lords have made some rather rash actions."

"Yeah we heard about that." Muttered O'neill. The delegates turned to face the Ancient gene carrier. He waved his hand "One of the Minor system lords moved against one of Kali's outer rim territories, well needless to say it failed. We got to watch Bastet and Kali swing up and clean the field."

The Chinese represenative frowned thoroughly, "And the US possession of advanced technology once again rears its head."

"If you have such a problem with it ask Sokar or Cronus." Raiden growled irritably, as it was if they were whining like this Yu would just tell them to stop whining.  
"What advanced technology?"  
"The United States Air Force has five fully functional atmospheric and Space classes of warship, four of which are capital ships, as well as two models of functional atmospheric space interceptor fighter air craft. F-301, a first generation atmospheric space interceptor fighter, it has few minor improvements over the Jaffa Death Glider. The F-302 and its respective variants, an originally terrestrial built fighter that has much better capabilities in dog fighting, The capital ships are, two of those are terrestrial designed, BC-303 Prometheus class Space Battle Cruiser, and the first of the BC- 304 Daedalus, the Daedalus was completed recently and is currently undergoing tests before being entering active duty. The Prometheus class has three models in service, it has shown exemplary ability to stand against Anubis's mobile armors, and the Alkesh, it is capable of holding its own against the standard Ha'tak Flight one and the Ha'tak Flight two, though it begins to lose efficiency against the Ha'tak Flight Twos fielded by the US air force, Anubis, and myself, as well as the Ha'tak flight three. Though its shields can hold out long enough for it to withdraw."  
"You didn't mention the type four." Carter commented, "I thought Yu was deploying those in increasingly larger numbers, didn't he just make plans for a planned test with our own ships."  
Raiden snorted. "I didn't mention them because whatever Yu has planned with you is between you and him. His Tun'cma'le Ha'tak or Anubis's Tuat battleship I do not care enough to comment on. Besides the BC 303, the United States Air Force has type two and Three Ha'taks, which they have improved via several modifications, hyperspace, shielding, point defense, modifications to better suit the F 302 fighter interceptors, and their ordinance. The BC 304 Daedalus shows remarkable promise for its capabilities as a warship. It should prove to be useful to your people in developing unto the point as a people one you can stand under the strength of your own legs."

Chapter Conclusion

Helltanz's Notes:


	28. Chapter 28 Interlude III

Chapter 28

Lightning Fervor

Helltanz's Notes: I've come to realize working on this that my principle problem, personally, writing this its that even with the single scenes giving some insight into people like the wizards of england, and the various goa'uld, and others that those scenes just aren't enough to properly convey what I'm try to accomplish. Basically given the timeline of the story I need to expand previous chapter substantially.

Chapter begin

-scene break-

For the Turtles they pretty much had been stuck watching the aftermath of the attack of the summit it was the sole thing occupying the news. Sitting there and just having to watch the fight on the streets of New York had bothered Raphael the most especially when the aliens had started intervening. Donatello was too busy reviewing years worth of footage from all the various invasions that had happened over the last several years.

Raphael growled, "Damn it can't believe that bastard is still poking around," Nobody had really figured out what was, what happened at the TCRI building. The whole place had started following apart, and one of the Umtrom's had showed them to a list ditch attempt to escape as everything broke away.

"Do you think that since he's poking around that maybe, may some of the Umtrom got out of the TCRI building, I mean we went into space, it'd be less crazy for them to go hide in the sewers or somewhere..."

Raphael spun his sais, "Don't get your hopes up Mikey, you saw what a mess that place was," or what was left of it. At least Master Splinter had made it out. All things considered though, what they had found hadn't seemed much better than what they had left behind on earth.

"Karai doesn't seem to think so," Raphael snorted at the response, and ground out a collection of disparaging remarks about the whole situation.

Master Splinter nodded, "I think that your friend is correct that there are things we simply cannot know just yet," Their sensei counseled, and produced a device from within the folds of his robes, "you must understand my sons that the Umtrom entrusted us with this for the betterment of this world, their legacy must be used for the good of all."

Donatello was all over the alien device, without further prompting, "its a computer of some kind." He quickly set to working on some kind of interface, "Why did you wait until now to show us this sensei?"

"He doesn't want us going up to the surface," Raphael groaned, "Lets face it we went sneaking into the TCRI building, and Shredder, and the guys in black showed up, and a lot of people died." The red turtle sat back on the lumpy couch in the lair, "Lets look at it then, we get sent into who know wheres in space, and we come back, and the world is still a mess."

Michaelango sat down besides his brother on the couch, "Hey at least the planet hasn't gotten invaded this year, no bird people from outer space like when the Thanagarians invaded, so maybe we'll have a quiet year."

"Yeah maybe," Donatello agreed prodding the computer causing it to glow, "Hey guys I think I got it working," It would definitely take some time getting used to the umtrom... he looked at the characters... oh it was english that was helpful. "This is some legacy, I think this is... this is like there whole cultural history, and I think this is the schematics for their technology." The question was who did they give it too though that was kind of important...

-scene break-

Sithis settled back onto the couch even as the mansion exploded, "Why are you just standing there!"She snapped furiously at him, We've got to do something!"

He ignored the shouting, and finally sighed watching the smoke rising, "We did do something don't you see dear, they're all," He swept his arm in a broad grand gesture to those around them, "all of them are alive." He laughed, "That was what you wanted, that was what you wanted me to do, saving the mansion was never what you wanted." He looked around at the collection of mutants it was a trifling thing. "I'm sure that Constantinos has the pantry stocked, I should hope so at least." As far as things went he had far more pressing issues to deal with than to worry about the state of food, but then he supposed it was more than reasonable for him to take the time to procure an eatary's cooking... what was it... calling out for a pizza.

"But we can actually stay here right?"

Sithis nodded, "As long as you wish,"

"Allright!"

He snorted, as it was it was probably better that way, he knew that Arkay would probably be throwing a fit. This was a mess. What mortals didn't seem to understand in this day and age is kidnapping was all well and good until you pissed off a god by grabbing the wrong person. It would certainly be interesting to watch the aftermath, or at least see how Arkay would organize his response. This was of course assuming he didn't allow the mortal authorities the honor of dismantling the offender's entire organization; SHIELD was rumored to at least be reasonably competent.

"So what about New York? I mean that robot," Rogue wasn't that worried about the Mansion, Xavier had more money than he probably knew what to do with so if everyone was safe... it was probably better to focus on the city that had been getting wrecked by all the giant robots and stuff.

Sithis shrugged, "I'm sure Oscorp will get a hefty contract to handle rebuilding, or maybe LexCorp," He shrugged again, such things hardly mattered "I'm sure things were surprisingly civilian friendly, like one of those children's cartoons on your television on saturday mornings." The Daedra commented, "On the plus side at least they all looked mildly military, can you imagine your news response if your largest city got wrecked by machines painted in what your society considered the epitome of feminine colors." Truth be told the idea amused him immensely. The no doubt massive outrage from the humans could be a useful tool to provoking them to action.

"Thats not what I meant, and you know it." She growled finally taking the proffered seat on the couch, "I mean Scott was here, Boom boom too," Sithis thought the nick name was stupid, but didnt' comment at least Cyclops was reasonable, "And so were the others, but Wolverine got kidnapped by that nutzo."

The Daedric lord shrugged, "I think you should relax, that is something that Arkay will settle. In his own way, and none of the gods will disagree with whatever course he chooses to pay Bolivar Trask back for that insult."

"Why?" She glanced back at him, "Hold on what?"  
Sithis spared a glance back at her. He seemed to have lost her again; he was growing increasingly annoyed with the modern world. "I've known Arkay since we were young, but know this what Trask had done is an unforgivable slight, had he stolen you, the Armies of the Dark would march on earth's streets, and all of Trask's bloodline, and the whole of his allies would cease to exist within a day and a night."That was not exaggeration either, he'd done such before no doubt he'd do it again.

-scene break-

For medieval subsistence farming droughts were simply a part of life. Famines were unfortunately a simple part of reality, throughout the galaxy in goa'uld domains that survived on medieval levels such things also happened. It was just the way of things.

Phobos had not had a pleasant night, actually the entire season had been a miserable experience. It was troublesome enough that, there was a drought, which had dramatically harmed food production, which negatively of course effected peasant moods. The truth though it was the guardians, and the hunt for his sister that was weighing on him.

There was simply too much at stake to leave this matter unaddressed, but this generation was strong. It wasn't as if Phobos was lax in some way, but the Heart of Kandrakhar that was too much of a boost to the five for him to hope to counteract, even sealed as it was by the blood of five. If he hadn't been so distracted by his current situation then Phobos likely would have hoped to meddle in Dakota, as it was though even with his pride slighted by Elijah he knew he needed to deal with the rebels and the guardians.

That though was the problem. The rebels had no way of defeating his castles, or his guards in bulk, but he had no way of finding them either. They were like dust in the wind, near in possible to track down. Coupled with the fact that there were only so many portals, and how diligent the guardians seemed in closing them he was very concerned with how things looked to play out. With the heart he knew that they would certainly be able to overpower his guards, even with out it the guardians should have that strength. He knew he needed to do something, just not what. "How is the situation?"

"We caught some of the farmers in the dale, sire smuggling grain and foodstuffs to the rebels, should I have them hung sire?"

To support enemies of the realm, traitors to the crown, was like in all societies of feudal base rarely well received news, but Phobos for the moment had cause to be lenient he needed all the farmers he could. "No increase their taxes, and put them back to work, station some guards, and additional workers at the farm," He needed to keep the crop yield as high as feasibly possible. Goodness he'd be glad when Cedric got back from Earth. "And leave me!" Phobos snapped irritably.

It was the Guardians they'd revitalized the rebellion with their appearance. It wasn't fair sure he'd known a fresh set would be chosen, but they were sill a nuisance. If they didn't have the heart he knew for sure he could beat them. He had to he was the Prince of Meridian, and more than that they were new to their tasks. Raw power or not they certainly shouldn't be doing near this well.

No what really burned was the Dread Father's lackey took such amusement from all of this. Elijah thought it was hilarious; thrice the ebon giant had mocked him, and it was all the more infuriating.

-scene break-

"I tell you what Rich, its good be back on the block." Static swerved around the corner it was a fairly average patrol so far. Just one breaking and entering was all he'd had to stop tonight, which was good given the school work he still had to do. He swung side ways as he caught something on the roof, "hold on Rich call you back in a minute, might have something going down."

Elijah lifted his head, his hands resting on the pommel of his sword, a long saber. It was a monstrous looking thing. Once upon a time it'd been an 1840 heavy cavalry saber as plain as any of its lot, today it was solid black save the runes glowing along it blade. "Good evening, boy."

"I'm going to guess you're not a bang baby," Static guessed warily, earning a loud but brief laugh from the larger man, "just had to check. So is there a reason you're up here, or did I miss a memo about-"

The man laughed again, and cut him off, new super heroes were always a fun thing to deal with, "You know about Alva's hand in the big bang event," That cut Virgil's banter short, and set him to stammering, "Don't fret so much. I am Elijah, Edwin Alvin has perhaps five years," He paused "up to nine if the experimental treatment he's been taking pans out you see. Its cancer, and the man wants a legacy. Yet every year an invasion on earth has been mounted at least once."

"Yeah well, I knew about the bang baby gas," which was true, It'd been one of the first things he'd found out after becoming a super hero, and obviously about the invasions of the Earth over the last couple years. What he hadn't known Alva had cancer though, that was a bit of a shocker, and obvious, "So Earth got invaded, you think its going to happen again."

He nodded, "I know so, the batman made an agreement with the Dread Father to lay the Thanagarians low, and the Justice League has been expanding since."

"Yeah I don't get the feeling your from the League." Virgil tilted back a bit on his electrified manhole cover, "uh no offense sword man."

A snort, "I serve a more profound calling, no I have more pressing issue. The league is expanding to better deal with threats, and with my divinely appointed task to guard this city I should think that should help. I am offering you an agreement." Elijiah held out a opaque waterproof plastic bag with a security mark on it. It was the information about the bang baby background all of it. Amongst that of course included where the mutagen had originated from, and the company Alva had gotten the precursor from, and the speculation of what that had meant. "You should read it, and not underestimate it, in their own way both Alva and Osborne are hard men."

"Uh thanks..." Virgil gave a pained grin taking it, and nearly lost control of his levitation when Elijah vanish in a glow from his light, "Geez things get weirder and weirder in Dakota," He reached for his cellphone and hit redial, "Yeah Ritchie... we have a problem I'm coming over." He considered opening but decided to go ahead and head over and read it at Richies house.

Richie was sprawled out on his bed staring at the tv. It was yet another of those ancient astronaut theory specialists going on about aliens on Earth. "Can you believe they have this clown on with Vandal Savage of all people?"

Virgil nodded, he knew the hulking dude in the monkey suit looked familiar. "So is that big mouth Godfrey still railing on Martian Manhunter?"  
"You betcha." Glorious Godfrey was one of the big names in news talkshows since the Thanagarian invasion, he'd been big before then, but now his vitriolic anti alien rhetoric had a more main stream base. The guy didn't have a problem with supers, just aliens, it was always just aliens. It did make him a critic of Superman, and Martian Manhunter, and from time to time the Green Lanterns, but most everyone else was fine even if Bruce Wayne had been catching a lot of flack recently from Godfrey. On that though everyone pretty much agreed the Wayne lawyers would shut that noise down if it got out of hand, or if the billionaire stopped being in good humor about it. "Did you hear him this morning whining about the launch of the Freedom I space lifter?" Richie asked muting the tv.

-scene break-

There were not many rogue Asgard at least as far earth was concerned. The most famous of these was of course Loki of Asgard, but he was not the only one. These asgard ruins told Bill that much as he looked around with Hermione, even if he hadn't known that specifically.

"These are computers, but I've never seen anything like these," She remarked, that was to say she knew they were computers, and she knew aliens existed, and such. She also knew from Bill's evidence that there had been Thanagarians on ancient earth, and such but it was still a hard pill to swallow. It was still a fascinating topic, especially when Moody had introduced them all to one of Stendarr's sworn. Moody had said that whatever was going to happen this era was going to end soon. For whatever that meant Moody was calm, he said the Aedra said that it had been in the works for ages.

"Glad Mad Eye has relaxed," Bill remarked, "We might need his help with this, I am not seeing anything obviously cursed," Which was surprising for him, generally ancient ruins were crawling in magic.

Bill's speciality had always been the near east, sure he'd covered the basics of the Northmen and the celts in school, but it'd only been recently, for the Order, he'd started going more indepth. Hermione was a bit of a help if only for the sheer book knowledge she retained, if you needed something translated or referenced she could probably handle it. "It says Utgard-Loki, who was a giant," In the Asgard language the word for the norse giant was actually more descriptive than that. The Asgard referred to themselves as Aesir, one faction of an ancient civil war, but Jotun were a different 'people' within Asgard context, as were the vanir. The elves had been the ancients. Hermione tapped the the stone. Bill cursed, and jerked his wand as the glowing started. It didn't matter, "its the galaxy, well the galaxies," She amended as the projection spread outwards. The Milky Way, then Pegasus, and Idun and beyond. The Asgard had at one point been, like the Ancients multi galactic, or rather their predecessors had been. Today the Asgard's genetic problem precluded such, and it had only compounded with the issue of the Replicators.

The recording was in ancient norse, phrased in what would have been traditional song it chronicled events thousands of years past, long before even the Terrors of Sokar.

"... uh?" Unfortunately for what would probably be the height of poetic tradition back in the day neither Bill or Hermione happened to speak ancient Norse, which kind of precluded translating. The map though, the star map that though was significant, even for the wizarding worlds. As an expert on the Egyptians, and the near east in general Bill recognized some of this, "We need to get Dumbledore, and... Sinistra here." The Asgard star map was a massive, which was saying something given the size of the room three dimensional image filled with countless rotating stars, but what most filled it out were the massive glowing auras around regions of space.

-scene break-

The Senate subcommittee that was for amongst other things responsible for the SGC's budget oversight were settled into their seats. Originally there had been a lot of pressure for Homeland Security to handle Homeworld Security, but that had gotten shot down quickly. Right now they were still poking through the latest SGC report. Jack was stuck sitting beside colonel Wilson, who had just joined the SGC and gotten command of the Army's new Stargate Combat Platoon. This was despite the fact that Wilson was very clearly missing an eye from a gunshot wound.

In the aftermath of Nirti's arrest on Earth by the System Lords, Moloc had managed to sweep up the bulk of her domain. It was a move that had greatly strengthened his position amongst the system lords. The SGC was rather worried about it, but the Senate had other concerns they wanted addressed.

The senate had other issues they thought more important to discuss with the assembled personnel from Stargate Command, "Reviewing the data," The texan began, "Your intelligence reports indicate that the largest of the GO'auld," He ennunciated, looking at the spreadsheet table in front of him, "Fleets is commanded by the First emperor of the Chinese, uh Yu Huang Shang Ti? That is correct isn't it Doctor Jackson, I said that right?"  
"Yes senator," Daniel nodded, if that ever got out to the general public well certain political factions had a rampant fear of a growing yellow peril to the east due to the growing economic power of the PRC. For now though the Stargate was still classified from the general public, and well most everyone else.

The senator nodded flipping pages, "Good, just wanted to make sure," He was rather large man, and thankfully rather open minded about the whole Stargate program, "Well after him is," He read down a bit, "Ah He-ru'ur, Her'uur uh,"  
"Heru'ur, Senator,"

Another nod, "Right him, his fleet is the next largest, says uh, big on carriers, and space fighters and such. Then Sokar is the next largest on number of ships," This placement was a result of how Heru'ur domain had grown as result of territory shifts, and losses Sokar had taken against Cronus, and other system lords. "followed by Cronus, is that right?" After another confirmation the Senator nodded, "Well I see the SGC's report does... things look in order, the war of the Goa'uld seems to have all their attentions. Sounds like its a good time to build up our own fleet." That was actually the whole issue, the Senate wasn't so keen on continued humanitarian missions, or anthropological research, especially given that there was a war going on between the decidedly hostile powers that ruled the galaxy.

The last time they'd been invaded Earth had been able to get free, it had been with Alien help yes, before the SGC's own ships could arrive. Even given the inferiority of the ships, and technology of the Thanagarians the wreckage had been carefully hoarded with hopes to learn from them. In fact the multi kiloton Thanagarian anti ship weapons had other tactical purposes, and their, the Thanagarian, other energy weapons had applications that the military expected to be useful. The shields for cities were a particular interest. That once piece of technology had a lot of public support to implement.

Then there were the discussions with NATO, but the main thing remained fleet construction, and research and development. "The development of systems for the Daedalus," The second senator, this one from Washington, began "should be your priority."

"That in addition to the Freedom Star Space station should be your priority," The third Senator spoke up, geez it was nice not having to deal with Kinsey anymore in these meetings. The USAF had the mandate for space technology, though the Navy was already contesting that by expanding their research into directed energy and other technologies. The back engineering of Thanagarian technology had been a boon for that, particularly the invader's antigravity systems.

-scene break-

Chapter Conclusion

Helltanz's Notes:


	29. Chapter 29 Interlude IV

Chapter 29

Lightning Fervor

Helltanz's Notes:

Chapter begin

-scene break-

Gotham was... exhausting. It was nearly as bad as managing the League was, but at least with the League he could depend on J'onn's support for command and control duties. He didn't have that kind of support when it came to dealing with Gotham. It was becoming especially problematic with SHIELD poking around with Bruce Wayne's life, and that was just one facet. His rogues gallery was a multiple problems under one header.

The last breakout from Arkham had been a pain, and most of the breakouts were still on the loose, and the US Marshals poking around Gotham were not helping.

On the plus side, even if it was just a temporary relief, Poison Ivy, and Bane were both out of the country. Bane apparently had skipped town after making off with a major shipment of arms, which was suspicious. In fact unless Wayne was off his mark all trails indicated that the mercenary was probably on some CIA sponsored job in south east, or central Asia. As for Pamela the temporary relief would probably turn into a headache of its own as she was deep in the heart of the African jungle.

"You know I could totally help Fox with the development, and testing part," Galatea remarked, meaning the Kryptonian mainly wanted to help with the testing of all the new bat gadgets that Wayne Enterprises was currently in testing. In truth Bruce had hoped to recruit Steel's civilian identity into Wayne Enterprises's powered armor research and development task group, but so far that hadn't panned out. "Look you need me to do this, I''m good with computers, I already know the programming language, and Fox is overworked as it is." The Kryptonian continued on, "or I can just announce I plan on interning at Wayne Industries at the next dinner."

Bruce face palmed, "I'll set something up," he didn't need this right now, not with Ra's Al Ghul in down as it was. The man had actually dropped by twice now... and that wasn't even counting the showing up at Wayne Industries, either. The truth was he really could use any available help. Gotham's cops were already talking about arming up, especially with SHIELD and the US Marshals poking around. "And Diana is taking the Wayne Jet to Paris for a shopping trip with Audrey before the diplomatic summit between the eastern central borders of her country, Latveria, and Vlatava." After a minute he went on to add that the flight left at nine,"

"Oh joy," She groaned, "That means we get to deal with Count Magic Pants," Galatea remarked, still no one in their right mind turned down shopping in Paris. "So," She looked around the batcave, and more to the point the scattered parts, "Hows the shield system coming?"

He tapped a diagnostic chart, "Defending the city from a Thanagarian style invasion at present is next to impossible, much less covering the entire metropolitan area," Which in simple terms meant any hope of shielding places like New York were out of the question if they were using the Gotham oriented system based in Wayne Tower. The League's current idea was to utilize their available technology to try and insure planetary safety. It however had become apparent that a Thanagarian style invasion simply was, for the time being, unfeasible to counter, without unacceptable dangers to major population centers across the country, and the world. Smaller, more day to day threats were being evaluated and processed.

The Justice League, however big it may have gotten needed to get larger to deal with the reality of daily international crime, and the very real threat of interplanetary invasion. Of course it wasn't just the Thanagarians people were worried about, while the Gordanians hadn't really attacked before Hro Talak's fleet had arrived, they had to be out there somewhere.

Then there were all the threats at home, super villians, and Cadmus, especially Cadmus though, along with other agencies, and rogue governments weighed heavily on the league. The attack on New York though, and the result. It was forcing the Justice League to do some in depth digging. Then there were all the other incidents cropping up across the country, on top of the usual international problems.

A laser line tripped somewhere on Wayne Manor's attendant lands sending a silent signal to the batcave. "Its the paparazzi," Galatea remarked unconcerned, "One of national gossip rags,"

"Even so," Being the Batman, and billionaire socialite Bruce Wayne, especially now with a house full of superpowered individuals, had always been exhausting. On the plus side Wayne Industries, and Applied Sciences would certain be busy, wasn't having any financial problems, even if Ra's Al Ghul was probably behind some minor stock buy ups. Not that he could prove that... yet, but it was likely with the way Dagget Industries had suddenly backed off.

-scene break-

This whole meeting fiasco was uncomfortable for SG 1. Shiva, well was one supposed to be dead, well according to the goa'uld, so obviously that had been just one issue. There was also the fact that well... Shiva was a creepy old bastard. Not necessarily mustache twirling evil, but he had zero compunctions about glassing an entire continent as an 'object lesson'.

Now on the positive side Shiva had fucking hated Ra, with like the passion of a thousand burning suns. So as soon as he'd heard Ra was back he'd formally declared his cause, and unified with Kali and Bastet. It was a potent little power bloc that alliance, even if formally Shiva hadn't been readmitted back to the Council of System Lords. Then again if the System Lords lost any more minor members there would be little excuse to avoid readmission given Shiva's political and military dispositions. Right now though the trio were sweeping over and gathering what they could.

Teal'c looked at the display, but it was Bra'tac who spoke up, "Shiva is an old goa'uld he hopes to maximize his position before the dust settles so as to have greater leeway to negotiate whomever wins in this conflict." It was going to be a long bloody, that much was clear. Neither side had the territory to do anything but raid the other as they carved through space setting up the ability to attack. Once both sides could reliably use their armies it'd just boil down to long entrenched fighting. It was clear fleets would decide the war, ground forces were playing a vital critical role in the war. Shiva ignored the Jaffa, or maybe he hadn't heard him at all Shiva was kind of cooky like that, Jack hadn't been able to tell just... well Shiva was creepy.

"Ha'tak vectoring, confirming Anubis IFF," Carter announced, Shiva could do this because officially he wasn't a system lord, all but name didn't mean anything to the 'real system lords' apparently.

Shiva gave a smile, "Good, good, let them come, ah let them come," He flexed his gnarled hands eagerly. The goa'uld's host was old and thin with a long scraggly gray beard, he was a little too eager about this, but truth be told they needed to head off Anubis he was was too close to one of their planets.

All they had had to do was tell Shiva they wanted to blow up a cluster of Anubis ships, they needed someone to claim responsibility. Shiva had brought a half dozen cloaked type 3 Ha'tak that were sitting in the outer reaches of corona of this system's primary star waiting. Shiva smiled, he wanted the prestige, he figured it'd help get him the prestige, and it was his region of space, or so he claimed. It was barren space, and for the most part worthless worlds to the goa'uld, but he'd warned Anubis repeatedly.

"Transition event, go live."

A subspace signal transmitted, and dozens of naquadah devices detonated, and Shiva cackled madly, before ordering his Ha'tak to attack while Anubis's Ha'tak were disoriented. It was a pretty successful maneuver all things considered Jack noted as some of Anubis's ships fell out of formation heavily rattled by the multi gigaton detonation that had wracked their formation. Well at least the blowhards in congress would be pleased by that, the new Homeworld Defense was talking about a ring of naquadah enhanced nuclear missiles lifted into orbit as a stop gap for planetary defense.

-scene break-

Moody was a bit more antsy than he had been, the whole community had been talking about it. He had actually been coming down before this. That a mortal had dared attacked one of Arkay's sworn, it was previously an unthinkable offense. Was this why the era was ending, Moody knew that not one of the Aedra or Daedra would stop Arkay's justice, and he'd told Dumbledore that, and still the headmaster still wanted to go over to America to investigate. Moody didn't want too, and it wasn't cowardice.

The whole continent, the whole planet, or at least the muggles were all in an uproar over what had happened. They were still picking up debris in New York from the attack, and here he was looking through ancient norse ruins.

Dumbledore was here too looking through, "I have been looking through my family's estate you see, and I may have some books from my grand grandfather that might help he was a rune man, he didn't particularly revolutionary, but cataloging and organizing he was good at that." The headmaster remarked contentedly, "It was a good work. I should have to find a copy,"

"Wasn't it published?" It was Hermione who asked, because while she wasn't completely sure she'd been to the bookstore, and picked up every book, besides the ones she already had a copy of, that even tangentially dealt with norse runes including one penned by Albus Reginald Dumbledore.  
The headmaster nodded, "Ah well he published a version, but a wizard never shares all his mysteries, especially back then certainly. "the one he published was just a consolidation of the mainstream references, good enough for students, but magic is all about discovering your own way." The old wizard termed, "Indeed, though what about the city of New York, I haven't been able to get much out of the Americans, or the Japanese for that matter."

"Its the beginning of the end Albus," Moody grunted, "a new era is coming, and we'll get to see it. This thing in New York will be well in hand." He sighed, "Black's sent me as many newspaper clippings as he can, I'd wager another attack on the world in a few months." Besides the Ministry could barely keep a grip on the situation with Voldemort, and they wanted to try and dictate policy across the pond. That would have been nonsensical even if the Daedric Lord of Order wasn't on the move. Not that their minister would ever let anyone tell him, he'd raised a fuss at the Japanese, the Americans, and Dumbledore when he had found out. Confounded idiot had wanted to go in, and try oblivate the people involved.

"He wasn't serious about trying to muscle in on the UN was he?" Hermione asked, "I know a lot of the," it took her a minute to say it, "Mutants got caught up in the fighting and a number of them vanished, and then there was that explosion in Bayville."  
Moody snorted, "The explosion could have been that fool Trask, though how I've got no idea on. It won't matter Trask is a dead man walking." He wrung his hands impatiently as he looked around, "we need to be looking to prepare."

Dumbledore nodded, "And I agree Alastor, in fact I should think that directly summoning Sithis would be ideal." Alastor grimaced, Albus had been busy speaking with the department of Mysteries a lot recently. "They've been researching Godric's Hollow for years," The older wizard continued on, "Its fascinating to see them so busy. They think the whole area is so saturated it may be causing new species of plants, as well as saturating the inanimate objects in the vicinity." By which he meant everything, stones, and the ruins, and others. Moody didn't like that, what if it was a gate into the void, or into oblivion or somewhere else. Not that him not liking it would fix it, if that department had been poking at it this long chances were it couldn't be helped.

-scene break-

The jaffa name for the world was well rather plain loosely it just meant ' The Tauri place of Shipbuilding'. It was rather plain, but it was accurate.

United States Air Force Col Jonathan Jack O'neill glanced at the still under construction Tauri fleet. All three of the Prometheus class vessels, as well as the Type two Independence and the type three Liberty Ha'tak were in orbit. The first of the BC-304 class, the Daedalus was already completed, and the second ship of the class, was being called United States Air Force Ship Atlas, was more than eighty percent finished. It was expected to enter service as part of the first strength of mobile earth defenses.

"So thinking about transferring?"

He snorted, "Nope."  
"The next one, the Odyssey is sixty percent completed," The other colonel remarked looking at the console in front of him, "if we rushed we could launch once we reach seventy percent."

Jack looked at the ship, "And our new fighters?" He hoped this whole thing didn't blow up horribly in their collective faces.  
"The F 302, all three variants are being produced by several major conglomerates, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Wayne Corporation Aerospace Group… you get the idea, we have aside from the squadrons on the ships, about three hundred on the Earth, another twenty to forty on each of earth's bases, hell Sokar is making them in all three variants, Cronus is sticking mostly to B model though."

That was true, Goa'ud though using the technology, it was disconcerting, Neutral didn't mean friendly, regardless of how friendly they were trying to be, "Well even Raiden acknowledged they were superior to the previous death gliders." Of course Raiden hated the old Death Glider design.

"That's true but those new crimson fighters Anubis has deployed, and the big green ones, they have shields, three of those them managed to stop a positron blast from one of Artemis's Albion class, that's saying something."  
"So what happened?"

"Couple Kurenais went in and with what ever the techs think those blades are called and sliced the big green things to pieces, went right through the shields."

"So?"  
"Well we go to look where the Kurenais came from, I'll show you," The other colonel tapped his console, activating the hologram, projecting a massive thing. "and just de cloaked, I am telling you Jack," He gestured wildly at the floating image of the ship, "this thing didn't drop out of hyperspace." He shook his head, "Its monster of a ship, huge thirty five hundred meters if scanners are right, mobile suits pouring out, Baal got the hell out of dodge quick. Shiva said its called Libra class battleship. Hell I thought it was some kind of carrier till the thing opened up. Wham wiped out twelve of Anubis's Ha'tak, the improved kind one volley from just one set of guns, on just one of the upper decks of the ship."

The Navy, and the Air Force brass too for that matter weren't going to like this news at all. Jack whistled. "Well sparky tends to arm his ships with every kind of gun that he can fit on them."

"You're telling me? No kidding." he commented, "And for the record it isn't just Raiden, we've got confirmation a dozen of them are under construction by Yu Huang Shang Ti at his primary shipyard."

O'neill groaned, "So how is the new fighter project going?" The navy, despite the objections of their own elements, which was saying something, was trying to sideline fighter development in favor of ships. It wans't like they didn't have a point either, given it would be a decade before Earth could field fighters in numbers capable of matching a purpose built Goa'uld Carrier.  
"The FX-303s won't be ready for production for another five months, but they show a lot of promise."

Jack nodded, the idea was to slim down the 302 as much as possible. The FX 303 went back to a classic fighter shape, scrapped the hyperdrive, and put in a bigger engine. The engine was the main concern. Congress hadn't been happy to approve designing a whole new air frame, and that was even with the Navy chipping in for R&D. "That's good, maybe we might have a chance against Sparky and friends Mobiles Suits."

"Hopefully Jack. Hopefully." Sighed the other officer.

"Any intel about Anubis's new ships?"  
"Nothing substantial," He commented, "apparently their called Tuat, battleship class, the name is apparently snake for Underworld. Doesn't match any known Goa'uld design structure, course we have seen similar non traditional snake designs from Sparky. The Asgard also mentioned a second vessel class we have yet to encounter, about the size of a Goa'uld Ha'tak Mothership." The differentials in size was mainly reflective of improved reactor technology derived from back engineering the technology of the Ancients. It also reflected the designs favoring more purpose built ships. That Anubis was building a ship a kilometer long, well that was the size of Raiden's flagship. "Any word about Raiden's fleet?"  
"Asgard said he's working on something," Jack grunted, "that it is under heavy security, they don't know what it is, and that has them and probably should have us worried."  
"You think its bad?"  
"If Sparky is hiding it this well?" he asked rhetorically, "Hell yeah, its bad. I'll go talk to the guys in intelligence try and figure out about this Libra ship," Jack glanced at the dry dock that was holding the under construction ship. There was a lot of arguing on Earth, as it happened letting the Chinese in on this just had earned them even more of an earful. Of course there was also the fact that the F302 and FX 303 rendered the Joint Strike Program a complete waste of money.

Not that that would probably stop the program just yet. No it would probably stumble on for a while longer because of lobbying, and other political bullshit. On the plus side at least the F 35 B, was going to be suspended in light of the new option. That would hopefully save some money. Of course the Stargate Program wasn't likely to see even one cent saved, but that was just how things were.

-scene break-

After everyone was settled the headmaster tapped his wand. "Ah welcome my friends to yet another meeting of the order of the Phoenix." Greeted Dumbledore stoking his beard over all he thought it had been a good week..

"Albus what is it now," They'd been booking around those damned ruins for more than a week, even after Dumbledore had found the notes he'd been looking for, "Voldermort is becoming active, and Sithis has been far to quiet." Growled Moody.

There was a nod, the increased activity was why he felt they needed to move. Tom was feeling threatened because of events in Derby. "That is exactly why, apparently from my contact with in the muggle government there is a war going on, apparently the Chinese ministry wishes to reveal the existence of the Gods to the general public."

"Yeah that, Sithis doesn't care either," which was the exactly opposite of the Ministry's stance on the issue, "He was the one calling down that tornado in the middle of a major city. Cheh, throwing around that amount of energy he was trying to lure us into a trap."  
"Now really Alastor I highly doubt that was the reason. Apparently the Automaton was quiet large, I am sure Harry didn't not want any innocents harmed."

"What part of god of death don't you get Albus?"

"Well Mad eye most of the major Gods of death are generally pretty fair, I mean Hades, Anubis, Sithis doesn't seem much of an exception, his order has a law enforcement sub group."  
The grizzled ex Auror glared. "He sent Tepes to Earth, Sithis is plotting." Muttered Moody harshly his eye rolling around. Alastor had not taken the exchange with Tepes well, and he made sure to stay clear of Derby, and the United States, and Canada as well just in case.

"Black is still missing." Grumbled a member. "Do we know when he is going to be able to make it back to a meeting?"

Snape uttered something disparaging, and another member spoke up, "He said something about Nemesis, last time. He might have a lead for us, She is the Goddess of Divine Retribution. Black wasn't given a trial."

Ron looked around, his mother hadn't been keen on him, or his brothers Fred and George joining the Order, but they needed to do do something. He nudged Bill in the side, "Well as things go," Bill began, "I can't say one way or another about Sirius, or Tepes, or even Raiden, or any of that. I can however say that with the heightened security measures we have managed to capture a few Death Eaters attempting to get into the temple complex that we were researching."

"The dark lord is also now aware of the conflict. It would appear he to has spies amongst the government." Stated Snape.

"Is that so Severus? Do you have any idea as to his plans my boy?"

Snape grimaced, between the vampire in England, and the French... well the man was actually German but he was living in France wizard the Dark Lord was furious, "On top of dispatching some wizards to England, he does hope to get some answers from the American side of things. I know that he was also has been examining the Chateau which was destroyed." Looking into that had been a bust, but the Dark Lord was confident enough to keep looking around France now.

"So anything Mad eye about that Château in France?"  
"It was destroyed in eighteen eighty three along with a large number of dead. It screams someone found something Sithis didn't want found, so he destroyed them to prevent people from finding whatever it was that was there." 'Why do I doubt that?' Bill mused with a roll of his eyes, but remained silent and let Moody continue. "I don't imagine there is much to find, except that it might be related to vampires." There were a couple of groans at this, "I have managed to get Gabriel to consider looking into the sight," Albus nodded, and seemed pleased at this.

-scene break-

In his kingdom of Meridian Phobos was aggravated. Well that was an understatement of his current mood. His sister still had not been located and with out here Meridian would remain un prosperous, seeing as she was the heart of Meridian. The prince punched one of the castle walls.

"Prince Phobos perhaps if you asked Lord Sithis?"  
He glared at his seneschal angrily. "He is more than occupied at the moment," and besides asking for help made him look weak, it had been so easy for the Dark Father to knock them about the dungeon, and then he'd sent them on their way, "now stop making excuses for your failures Cedric." Snarled the Prince and Cedric wilted a little. "Besides do you really want to be the one to admit to the lord of death you were beaten by a group of rank amateurs again?"  
"Not particularly." He conceded, Cedric watched as the prince continued pacing. He hoped that Phobos would calm down soon, it wasn't helping. Still as far as he could see swallowing ones pride seemed the best solution at the moment.

"Then get back find Ellyon, and bring her back." The prince swept an arm out, "Then go and find a portal, at least thats easy now." He snapped irritably.

That was true with the heart active amongst a group of guardians he knew precisely where to go and look. "Yes prince Phobos." He answered sweeping away to the nearest portal he knew of, and into the town of Heatherfield. Cedric scowled of course Sithis had called them amateurs he was a god, but did Phobos understand that, no. Cedric moved over to the new arrivals.

The book store he had opened was not necessarily a bad cover, Cedric enjoyed the pursuit of knowledge going so far as visiting the Rashomon class Izanami's massive libraries whenever he got a chance. It was unfortunate he did not get the chance often, because Raiden did not appreciate visitors. The vessel held numerous tomes from ancient earth libraries long thought lost, among them Alexandria, and several far eastern libraries. Cedric placed another book on the shelf. The hairs on the back of Cedric's neck stood up. Sithis was walking out of the Golden Dragon; it was one of Cedric's preferred restaurants. He liked the food, and he liked that it let him keep an eye on the guardians as well. However the problem he had was because Sithis was coming out of it, right in the path of the Guardians.

"Isn't that the guy who kicked our ass when we tried to rescue that rebel leader?"

"I think so, its hard to tell with him dressed so… normal." Indeed Sithis was dressed in a business suit. It was new, or it certainly looked new. In truth though the cut and styling of the suit was older. He liked this cut as he brushed a hand along his coat, Constantinos preferred some of the 40s era Boss stylings which the god did admit were nice. It was such a pity his charge didn't appreciate such refinements. He stopped, speaking of small things.

"Uh hello."It was the keeper of the heart that spoke up.  
The lord of the void smiled tilting his head, "Good afternoon little one." His fingers gingerly reached out to ruffle her hair softly, and she glared at him. He could feel the heart of Kandrakhar, feel the pulse of the energies, and how it reverberated with her own magic, and his magic, and the other guardians, and all of what was around them. He would have laughed at how they all spread out in front of him, it was cute.

"What are we chopped liver?" The blonde guardian, snapped angrily.

The earth one, he recognized, pleased, "Literally no however if you mean that in a metaphorical sense basically yes," This was received with glares from the guardian which the System lord ignored. "You would think Yan Lin would recognize my divine personage, being a former guardian, but ah how weakened mortals are by times unrelenting ravages." And of course the betrayals that had lead to the fall of the last guardians as well.

"You'll leave my grand mother alone." Hissed Hay Lin.  
He spared the new guardian of the wind a look, "Have I struck a nerve mortal?" He knew that he had, it was the entire point. All of this was a test, the Guardians could struggle but the truth of the test was that it was of character.

"Watch it buddy I know what you are my dad's a cop." Growled Irma. She knew she could handle this. It didn't matter if he had magic, they did too. It wasn't going to come to that, she told herself, they were in the middle of the street.

"And I am a god." He commented, and what could she possible know of him. That his brother complained of his actions, that his allies were laying the foundation. That this very era was coming to an end.  
She gritted her teeth and stepped up beside will. "Sithis serpent god of death, the Dread Father lord of The Void, divine patron of the Guild of Shadows, did you know the FBI has a file on your organization?" When he smirked, she wondered maybe if she had made a mistake.

"Of course, and you water child used your fathers connections with the police to find out about said file. Did you also know despite numerous indictments they have never sentenced a member of the brotherhood?" Nor would they ever, too many politicians or members of Law Enforcement gladly swore to him. To many soldiers had come back for the wars of this century with blood on their hands, more than any of the Children of Terra's past. "For lack of evidence usually though the deaths of witnesses, some of those, yes even those in protective custody. The governments of man appreciate this discretion my followers offer, even if they cannot acknowledge it in public due to silly human morals." Of course even his brother complained of his order's necessary service to keep society somewhat ordered.

The five guardians plus the system lord vanished reappearing in an abandoned industrial park complex across town. He looked around the complex, graciously offering them his back as he turned. "Much better. Though it would appear I might have over estimated you coordination."  
"Warn us next time." Growled Cornelia waving his hand away. Her magic had swirled she didn't like this place, true it had stone, but there was no soft earth or plants here, not for hundreds of feet in any direction. It was barren.

He paid her complaint little mind, to her ire, "So I trust you have not caused any further trouble in Meridian?" He knew they had of course, but all of this was of course at test to see how they responded.

"You should know." Snapped Will.  
"I am currently otherwise occupied dealing with other matters. I cannot be bothered to such trivial things, even one world ruled by my dear ward." He many responsibilities laid out before him, and watching Stendarr, and of course the other Daedra as well were only part of that.

"So you don't care?"

He leered. "Hardly little one, I am simply otherwise occupied, though beneath my notice for the time, lest you would have it different," Sithis let the offer float a second, "the war that stirs across the stars nearest comes dangerously close to this world."  
"Tell Phobos to stop sending people to Earth to snoop around Heatherfield then." She demanded. "Thats what I would have." She growled the heart pulsed so intune with her soul.

Of course they didn't understand, such a pity. This generation would be the strongest in generations. To see them grow would be splendid. "Have you asked why he's snooping, as you put it, around this little town?" He swept an arm out,

"NO!" snapped the Guardian of wind angrily.

A gust spread from her, magic flaring at her anger "My calm your self, I am capable of hearing," He commented, "Then perhaps," he paused for effect, "you should consider asking, instead of simply attacking rashly." The guardian of air glared.

"Uh Hay Lin fighting him probably won't go so well." Warned Taranee, and with good reason. She knew he could reasonably negate

"For all the oddity in her choice as the guardian of fire, she is wisely speaking." He stated softly, there was no need to tell. Poking and prodding softly would for today be just enough to get what he was after.

"What is that supposed to mean?"  
He swept a hand gesturing to each of the four elements, "Typically the guardian of fire is not afraid of their element, and usually they are impulsive, rash, hotheaded. They are also generally not very studious."  
"Hey!"  
"I am merely stating what has been the traditional choice for some many thousands of years. Were you mine? I'd gifted you water, and granted Irma fire," There was some surprise when they discovered that yes he did actually know their names, "Of course I know them." He responded in a bored tone. "I assure you Phobos has a very valid reason for snooping around as you put it." At least as far as he was concerned, and as far as things went from an objective point of view the other gods would agree, this was still beyond the concerns to warrant them meddling though... from a strictly legal perspective at least.

"And why is that?"

"That is his concern, and will only concern me when he decides to ask," Phobos's pride would get him in trouble, it always had. He wouldn't be asked until things were too far outside of Phobos's grasp for him to ignore any further, "little one."  
"So why are you here?"

"That is my reason little one."  
Will's eye twitched. "Stop calling me that." She jerked roughly at the sudden ruffling of the shadows, another man approached. His eyes narrowed at the sight of the guardians, but he still dropped to one knew. She saw Sithis's teeth bare in annoyance as he turned, green eyes narrowed.

-scene break-

A klaxon began to shriek inside the Ark Research Facility on Mars. Once upon a time this had been an Alteran facility. Not that there had been much left when he had found it even if the structures had been reasonably intact. 'This is a nuisance I am here barely an hour and already trouble.' A Jaffa rushed forward, forgoing propriety

"Lord Raiden, we believe the Tauri orbital facility Watchtower computer network is being hacked into," He announced as they headed into the command center

It took a minute to confirm from sensors, but it was confirmed that the binary fusion canon was being prepared to be fired. Raiden turned to the Jaffa, grimacing. "Requiem status?"  
"Cannons three and seven are ready, and aligned," The Jaffa read over the data stream and confirmed those findings, "Substation fourteen is operational."  
"Raiden we have never tested this before."

There was a concern in her voice that he didn't often hear. He liked it, he found, "That is why we supplemented the Station's Artificial Intelligence." Stated the system lord activating a console. "Arming Requiem cannon three, Requiem cannon seven, fire position established, substation fourteen moved into position." He announced, this would be magnificent. A triumph of science, to quote Ptah.  
"Lord Raiden Tauri cannon firing in three two one." Another Jaffa spoke up proclaiming the Requiem to be firing. "Tauri cannon firing." The warrant officer, as the Tauri would have ranked him, manning the console announced. The screens in front of them displayed three columns of energy from various angles streaking through space.

"Positron emission reaction detected, critical mass, energy path alteration confirmed."

The two Requiem blasts veered away from one another, while the fusion canon was redirected.

"Substation fourteen has successfully redirected fusion cannon. Your orders lord Raiden."

The system lord turned. Delightful, success was always so sweet, "Deploy mirage colloid mobile dolls from the facility on the dark side of the Tauri moon." A jaffa immediately relayed the orders as the System Lord reached a hand softly out, "I would say that qualifies a success you agree Artemis?"  
The Watchtower was in a panic, "Your system's got hacked." Commented Galatea as she looked over everyone scurrying around. She couldn't imagine being here day after day, lording over all the technicians and workers. No wonder Cadmus was scarred of the Batman, and the Justice League. These people were absolutely loyal to Wayne enough that they were working on a space station full of superheroes.

"I am more worried about the other two energy discharges." Commented the Martian Manhunter, still the other two discharges had avoided a major disaster.

Batman scowled, "there are not many people who could hack the Watchtower like that, and I'm reasonably sure we can speculate Luthor is behind this."

"Luthor." Galetea echoed, "Isn't he working with Cadmus now?"

Wayne nodded from behind his mask, "Yes," Luthor had somehow managed to convince the NID to not simply back him getting LexCorp back, and a pardon, in exchange for certain programs no doubt. "I've counter hacked into several key databases, trying to find what he was trying to hit."

"You can't go around doing that." Protested Green Arrow. He sighed, "What am I saying never mind, what did you find?" Ollie groaned, hoping that it wasn't yet another alien invasion.

It was a Cadmus facility, funded by the NID main budget, which meant it couldnt be that important to them, "It is an underground base." The NID's 'Cadmus division' base had another problem... "Captain Atom is there." Bruce added after a minute,

"Well thats going to be a problem," Kara remarked, her clone snorted, "Did they capture him, I mean why would Luthor hit the base unless maybe captain Atom found something we have to go rescue him."

Galatea raised an eyebrow, and then looked at the two members of the League council, "I guess that means we're not waiting for Green Lantern and Superman to get back?"

"I will attempt to raise Flash, and will have Aquaman take over here until we get back he has the appropriate skill to handle command of the Watchtower."

-scene break-

Within Raiden's Dominion this was the twelfth fleet staging point, according to the current naval register. The Shinku Rai Tatsu was buzzing for information. Raiden glanced at one of the stationary, or rather it appeared stationary, Type Three Ha'tak, one of his type three. Raiden chuckled. 'How lost the Tauri would be if they managed to board one of my Ha'tak flight three.' He heard that they were busy drilling aboard one of Heru'ur's type three for practice. That would have made sense on older Ha'tak hulls, but though visually similar to their counterparts on the outside superstructure type three were internally very different depending on system lords.

The larger shapes of the type four, larger in comparison to the type Threes, loomed near the Shinku Rai Tatsu, in front of the Fleet were long sleek Dreadnoughts. Below the Shinku Rai Tatsu were Libra, four of them, above were the collection of Peacemillion, and aside were Granshiro and Gondwana and outskirts were other ships of varying classes, and behind stood the fleet node a large group of space stations with its own defense fleet.

"Lord Raiden were are prepared to initiate hyperspace jump."  
He scowled, he had hoped to enjoy his time on Mars, but this opportunity had spoiled that, though it was too valuable of one to pass up. "Spin up the FTL drives, Rei, its time to begin. Begin operation Shinso." In this case Shinso meant Divine spear, do not get confused with Shinso, "Commence firing as soon as we exit hyperspace."

The huge hyperspace window appeared and the ships accelerated faster than light. They were charging deep into contested Goa'uld Space. The region was roughly in the middle of what was Goa'uld space. Specifically it was one of Anubis's temporary fleet staging grounds

Or as the Tauri called it P3X-666 If Raiden was west from Earth's perspective of Goa'uld space then Anubis was East.

Anubis's fleet was in a flurry of activity as the hyper space window opened the sheer mass of the fleet had an affect on the mostly ocean covered planet, which for whatever reason happened to be contested. Anubis's Fleet commander stared at the looming force of warships, a brief nanosecond passed and Raiden's fleet fired in a lethal storm of energy and projectiles, Mobile Suits launched. In an instant the targeted vessels, Anubis's Tuat battleships mostly, were destroyed. That was fortunate, because had they not been the heavily armed capital ships would have raised shields and inflicted severe casualties to Raiden's own cruisers and dreadnoughts.

"Burn his ships to dust." Roared one of the senior Fleet commanders to one of the weapons officers, as Raiden watched the battle. The system lord mouth slightly turned upwards at such a display of fervor.

"Hai Sotaicho." Responded one of the weapons officer

Anubis's ships were desperately attempting to counter, desperately trying to fire their weapons and release their mobile armors or death gliders, assuming there hangars were even still intact. This was a critical, this raid needed to do as much damage as possible before they jumped back.

A large number of the Ha'tak that Anubis had had gathered at this location had been destroyed in the initial salvo, not surprising given the vast size of the fleet.

Missiles and other solid munitions flew from the varying ships, no Ha'tak type one or two being present amongst Raiden's fleet.

The System Lord looked on as the Shinku Rai Tatsu's multiple triple 42cm naval gun emplacements fired. Hyokiri and Hyohoshi missiles streaked from their emplacements on the forward portions of the 'arms' and 'wings'.

The Shinku Rai Tatsu and the upper tier warships had yet to even go to full weapons release, and already victory was nearing. That was what the Jaffa could sense, "Prepare ground troops the forces of Anubis have only just started to set up this planet for use as a base they have not even fortified the Stargate." The jaffa ordered,

One of the fleet commanders glared as Rei directed the Shinku Rai Tatsu to change direction, so that the linear cannons could destroy a Mothership Ha'tak. Whatever the officer was going to say died in his throat when Raiden's voice spoke up addressing one of his fellows, "Muto make sure that you deploy the mobile suits to support the drop ships, several Ha'tak are in the atmosphere."

"Of course my lord." The man grunted, "I will insure not a single one leaves the skies of this world." He declared.

On the Planet's Surface things were not going well. It was supposed to be a routine mission explore a planet, how the hell was SG-13 supposed to know Anubis was going to build a base on the damn rock, and then Raiden decided to show up with a huge freaking fleet of ships, which as soon as they had arrived proceeded to open fire on the fleet Anubis had stationed above.

Col Dixon fired his Kull disruptor as the black clad warrior advanced on the Stargate team. More of the pain in the ass artificial life forms were ripped apart by … oh fuck Mobile Suits. The team leader swore. In between the squadrons were Raiden's own version of the Drop ship Anubis employed There wasn't a whole lot of difference between the two.

A forest camouflage 6-Gat X106 landed about a hundred or so meters away, raising its eighty millimeter high energy beam sniper rifle towards Anubis's still under construction base, targeting one of Anubis's own dropships. The Drop ship exploded sending hundred of Anubis's jaffa if not more to their deaths.

The radio on his vest crackled as he watched the explosion with a grimace. Col. Dixon Damn it SG-13 niner what is your status, was the original message, except that pretty much every other was nearly indecipherable due to interference, "SG-1 niner you're breaking up, SG-13 has men injured. We are pinned down behind the fighting." SG1's response was an Acknowledged Dixon we are coming to get you. Given that the trees were being uprooted by the descending Mobile Suits he grabbed his radio and squeezed the transmit. "Negative SG-1 niner too dangerous."

An Albion class descended into the atmosphere. Dixon swore again as the Assault Carrier's hangars opened and more mobile suits entered the battle.

"Negative Dixon we don't leave our people behind." Stated O'neill arriving through the tree line. The ground shook.

"How did you?" He asked looking at the reinforcements, it was Teal'c that spoke up explaining the advantageous turn of events.  
"Raiden's mechanized corp. has eliminated much of the resistance to and from the stargate." Stated Teal'c.

"We need to get you guys out. Raiden has started to deploy heavily armed ground troops. We have to cover forty meters lets go before it gets mucked up again." O'neill grimaced for a minute, "That and Carter expects debris to start impacting the planet in like under an hour"

Back in Space a Jaffa double checked the flat table as a report was delivered, "Lord Raiden most of Anubis's fleet has been destroyed, the majority of his forces are now stranded on the planets surface." Stated Rei "Additionally the stargate was just connected to the Tauri gate. According to radio transmissions they have injured personnel, we estimate at minimum two SG combat Teams in addition to SG-13 and SG-1."

"Ignore the Tauri, eliminate Anubis's forces first and foremost." The Tauri's presence was too convenient to be coincidental, but he couldn't spare the moment to find out why they were here. The System lord retook his seat. Most of the Ha'tak had been reduced to free floating spatial debris now and only a few of the ships had been able to escape. He surveyed his assault group, and frowned.

The fight had gone well, none could doubt that, but even destroying the handful of Tuat class battleships here would only slow Anubis down's massing of the ships. Still though both factions were continuing massing their fleets.

-scene break-

The entire brotherhood was laying low on Earth for the most part, that 'unfortunate thing' that had happened in New York had put everyone on edge. Lucien was here because he could afford to be, there were few leads at the moment.

Tepes and Lucien were sparring, though it was probably more accurate to call it fighting, again, seeing as both of them had several cuts and gashes. The Crimson Scar smirked bringing his long sword down only for Lucien to vanish.

"Damn it you bastard." Tepes swung around and managed to avoid being hamstrung by the other killer. Lucien's weapon grew bright, and blazed with black energy. "You bastard." Tepes growled jumping aside to avoid the blast, while firing one of his own.

Lucien had already gotten clear, hurtling upwards magic pulsing through his legs to propel high above them. "Enough," a cold voice ordered. "I have something for the both of you," Sithis sliced open one of his fingertips..

The Nosferatu actually yelped, eyeing the component that made the Rose of Sithis arrows so deadly. It wouldn't kill the vampire since Sithis had reanimated Tepes but it would take sometime for even him to heal from. "There is a storm brewing, of course," Sithis commented, Jyggalag was risen so at least some upheaval was unavoidable, "One that will be unfortunate," Lucien nodded at this comment in agreement, "both of you are to continue you present tasks. There will be things happening in America, across it both by many factions," Arkay would be busy, Stendarr like would find some opening to have a hand in things to come. What was coming was a critical juncture to see just how things would play out after Trask's little foolishness.

"And what of the Guardians?" Lucien asked cautiously, watching the blood as it dripped into the mold, "They grow more active," He stated unnecessarily, "and there is also the matter of things in the mid west of the country."

That was a local matter, and Sithis said as much, it was Elijah, and the Black Hand of the continent responsible for dealing with Dakota, and he saw no reason to intervene at present, though the Guardians were another matter entirely. "They can be left be for the time being."  
Tepes grinned, "of course the Crimson Scar has everything well in hand," he nodded resting his sword on his shoulder. Not that he'd ever get involved in the operation, nope that wasn't happening it looked so boring somebody else could handle that. That whole thing with Khandrakhar sounded like a droll affair. "So about the Knights of the Temple we should do something."

"Not yet," It hadn't been an issue in seven hundred years, why should it become a focus now, Arkay's response would be the key, and in truth he longed to take the time to watch from up close. At the same time though there were countless other things he needed to focus on, so he would only have so much time to give the matter the focus it truly deserved.

"So the guardians and the child," America would be busy, especially given what Elijah had thus far reported, Lucien mused. "and then Arkay's chosen, how long Dread Father do you expect?"

As it stood Wolverine was safe, which was as far as the coming storm meant a good thing however there were still a group of mutants missing as a result of the fight. Or at least whatever had lead up to it. "This burning storm? Days weeks perhaps, it will be the brush fires after to b**e **concerned with," He commented as he settled into the high backed chair at head of the table. "Still these are a symptoms of a larger things,"

"Mephala" Another voice, softly coldly added, neither member of the Black Hand drew weapons, even Tepes lacked the rashness to do that.

Sithis's green eyes lifted at the other, "Amongst others of course, all these great plots intertwine I was thinking more keenly on Azura, of course." Naturally though just as there were Daedra meddling, even the Aedra would their obsessions be interfering as well, but that was just the way things were. "but then you've been busy too as well I suppose."

-scene break-

Meanwhile Raiden was busy looking at the projected image of one of the massive shipyards. It'd been a miserable week. "Status?" questioned the system lord.

"The City is entering the final stages of refit," Which was about time in her opinion, "in a season it will be completely ready." Confirmed a female voice.

Raiden snorted, about time. "And the battleship?" Anubis had lashed out effectively with his counter attack. Yu's fleet had retaliated maximizing their superior numbers to minimize damage, but you could only prevent so much damage. Anubis, and Baal's fleet were consolidating new technology. It was becoming a problem as even Flight II Ha'taks that had been built little more than a decade ago were little more than cannon fodder to the new improved gun designs. The longer this went on the more time the other System Lords, the ones who chose to sit out would have time to update and prepare. The longer this dragged on the more problematic establishing a new regime would be.  
"Using the initial schematics and the appropriate plans to alter the design to accommodate the new technology, three seasons, a year possibly, perhaps even a month longer than that, not including tests so perhaps a year and three months. Depending on the core, we do need to make appropriate adjustments," There was a pause, "A Rashomon core should work but those do take time to build. It will take less time to construct the second once we have properly field tested the first of the class, and know how to build them, once we have completed design we can begin building them at the Bairn… which will substantially lessen construction time."

The frowned deepened, a year, damn it, "And the new Phase sevens?" He hoped that at least on the fighter side of things it played out a bit better. Still the issue with shipbuilding always took time, there wasn't anything that could be done.  
"Almost done a few days and the first squadron will be combat ready, I do believe Artemis will be significantly impressed. The Fervor upgrade has been completed as well. Do you intend to use the new battleship as your flagship?"

"It is possible, but at the moment the Shinku Rai Tatsu is more than sufficient, no need to tip my hand with my strongest enemy slowly loosing."

"So you don't intend to deploy the ship against Anubis."  
"Will it even be ready by then?" He asked her, by all evidence the other system lords could not stay out of this fight much longer. "Anubis's is slowly losing the war, the Tuat while more powerful than even his upgraded Ha'tak or my assault carriers," Or any of his smaller ships, the Tuat could stand against and kill his dreadnoughts. The other system lords could hardly afford such ships running around, he thought, "unless they have three to one in numbers or greater, pose no significant threat given their numbers in comparison to my larger vessels and their quantity, he has introduced them to little to late... Though I concede the Euclid are proving a nuisance against the older mobile suits."  
There was a placating nod, "And those crabs like mobile armors?"  
"Troublesome they are," He agreed, "a bother against the lesser ships, even assault carriers to a degree, but with the introduction of the Phase Seven Kurenai and the upcoming launch of others like it, the damage is reduced but the Zam-Zah is still a nuisance, at least in space and fortification battles, well a small thorn it is nothing to be terribly concerned over."

"And the other?"  
"A variation or side developed project of the Zam-Zah," He commented dismissively of Anubis's other mobile armor, "Gells-Ghe is aggravating as well to an extent while its shield cannot be extended as far it does possess better long range anti mobile suit equipment, or anti fighter, though at close range the BuCUE and Tsumes are typically more than a match."

"I understand the varying Okashira are meeting with you."

"Yes. I doubt it will become necessary but it is best to prepare for the necessity of deploying in mass the shinobi." He commented settling back, this war had to be ending he needed the breathing space to actually start to counterbalance Heru'ur and Cronus. As it was they were getting far to comfortable with the humans of the Tauri, it annoyed him immensely.

-Chapter Conclusion-

Helltanz's Notes:


	30. Chapter 30 Battle For Earth

Chapter 30

Lightning Fervor

Helltanz's Notes: Naturally there is a significant differences with the JLU timeline, some episodes just don't happen, and others happen at different times.

-Chapter begin-

Constantinos straightened his tie, "I have confirmed the Darkholm is correct in her gathered information," He stated. His god was busy he knew, and even if the Dread Father could have spared the time, Arkay was surely occupied with vengeance. Gods chose to not interfere those things. "I will help you as I can, but Arkay makes his own decisions, and he is an Aedra."

"And? What about the Professor?"  
"And why are you bringing that?" Cyclops demanded eying the pistol with distaste, as far as things went they'd been lucky when it came to Bayville Police. At least the first couple days, Constantinos had ordered one of his 'brothers' into action when they'd gotten caught in the fray, and that'd turned into a messy firefight. It'd been some straight action movie bullshit, with the one killer going through a horde of local cops in heavy black robes armed with a handgun. The only problem was the guy doing the action movie shoot 'em up looked to have been in his late fifties.

The man holstered the weapon. It was native to the Tauri, a heavy block of metal with a double stack magazine. A crude weapon lacking the elegance of the Ayeleid plasma pistols it cravenly tried to mimic in shape, and tone. Still it blended well with his disguise, and that was truly the important thing. His magic was the Dread Father's true edge in the fight against the enemy, "It is but a crude weapon, but even so with it I will kill the enemies of my god,"

Rogue rolled her eyes. "Right so the NID, and the CIA, and the NSA... is there anyone not apart of the Alphabet soup involved in this?" As it turned out BATFE, and the DEA weren't involved, which didn't really make her feel any better about this. "So are going with Mystique's plan then?"  
"Of course not," He hissed, irritation coated his voice, her students had been responsible for his needing to bring Elbert White into this. The Archon had been more than willing to commit to his part, but that was not the point at all. Still it had meant engaging the local authorities, which was sure to draw attention. "if we cannot negotiate their release," He hoped they would not be so unreasonable, "We will pursue a more direct course of action in rescue." He promised, the Dread Father had been clear things were getting out of hand in the wider galaxy, and the sooner these 'Xmen' were reconstitute the better. "We will find a solution,"

Spike grimaced, "What about spreading out, if we move to like Dakota even if we do get caught in a fight it could be played off like we're just bang babies,"

"That," He sighed, there was no point in snapping at him, while it was true there were flaws with the plan, obvious ones especially given that some of the students of the institute had been clearly present in the New York battle, "may be an option, I will speak with Elijah," Splitting up had its possible benefits, while they worked to free the others and it also had benefits. Constantinos pressed the crystal fixture next to him, his magic glowing softly around his hand. The conversation was quick, as Elijah's silencer dealt with the trivialities of the issue. "I can move some of you there safely." Elijah couldn't afford to have all of the students placed there, but certain he could take in a handful for the duration of the crises. Constantinos had gathered dozens of members of the brotherhood who were available to help with watching over the students. It had proven necessary considering there had been two more confirmed engagements by those large metal automatons deployed by Trask, one even Bayville itself a few days prior. That had been a danger, and why he was willing to leave the city. He could not fathom the mind of the Aedra, it made no sense to him why Arkay would dwaddle like this, save that he must have hoped to draw things out for some unknown benefit.

-scene break-

Tokyo was under attack by a giant monster... how many movies made by the Tauri had started with that occurrence. While the four members sent by the Justice League attempted to evacuate the civilians, a certain Shinto system lord materialized on top of a Foot owned building.

Raiden glared at the large turtle from his perch as he watched. Such a mess this was as if he didn't have problems in Japan enough to deal with. The League wasn't alone of course as it was Japan had native superheroes... in particular the Armor Bearers who were giving Talpa such trouble. It wasn't like it could be helped though, either situation really, so for now he settled back.

Talpa stood proudly, even as he was getting soaked to the bone in the rain, besides the System Lord. His single complaint was that he was unable to do anything about the turtle attacking the city... or the ronin, of course at least they were assisting in the defense. He could hardly fault them for that.

Unlike the System Lord, or his retainer Karai had the good modern sense to be wearing a rain coat in the middle of the thunderstorm. Still for the time being she adjusted the binoculars and kept watching. The situation on Earth was considered exceedingly problematic, especially given the burgeoning 'mutant crises' being stirred up. The Shredder had made plans to attempt to curtail certain elements, namely the likes of Oscorp. As it stood though with Luthor so busy working with the Federal government he would either be too busy to do anything about the mutants, or the exact opposite, and the latter could definitely be a problem. Talpa had openly gloated that such matters were beneath his purview, and then this had gone and happened.

Across Tokyo Bay the mixture of League members and independent superheroes were busy trying to contain the superpowered turtle. Recruiting hadn't really gone well with the league leadership unable to really agree on a new criteria, especially for things like age. So offering the five armor bearers junior league positions just hadn't seemed like a good idea, so they'd, the League, settled for trying to keep talking channels opened.

That was actually why they were here, Green Lantern still hoped to get a Japanese based League established to handle things in Asia. Of course the problem with this was politics both regional, and international.

STRIPE altered his flight course, to get beside John Stewart who was flying back from the docks, "So whats the plan?"

"We're still getting civilians out of the docks, right now our priority is keeping the turtle occupied, and dealing with the surge," the Green Lantern remarked.

Dugan nodded, "Any chance of more help?"

"We're on our own, J'onn said SHIELD has requested all hands on deck to stop a major InterGang assault on Metropolis in the wake of Superman's absence." As it was they didn't have any idea what InterGang was after either, other than they seemed to be hitting everything of possible scientific work in the city. "Batman thinks its some kind of feint and that InterGang is using it as an initiation.

-scene break-

The Tauri Alpha site had seen a lot of expansion particular with the latest allocation of funds from Congress. Recent intelligence had definitely put the focus indeed further on fleet construction. The goa'uld war was getting out of hand. Anubis's abrupt offensive had was THE critical problem. Baal was presently engaged in a committed offensive into the heart of Goa'uld space.

O'neill would be glad though when it came back time to rotate back to Earth. These extended deployments to the Alpha Site were hard to explain to people. This was a bigger issue for other members as well. "Hows it coming?" He asked, it was turning out that Stargate command was becoming a victim of its own success.

"We fixed the problem, bad batch," He grumbled, "I don't see how it made it through quality control," The engineer responded. He was talking about the Atlas, and how a series of computer systems had abruptly failed during shake down operations.

The ship was fine, but the reality of constructing the ships meant that the hulls were largely cut and built offworld, with off the shelf parts brought in where ever possible to cut down on prices. Congress, and now both the Navy, and Air Force wanted to push for fleet building while the goa'uld were fighting. This notably meant trying to streamline the both the existing Prometheus, and Daedalus class ships, as well as start diverting budget to research concept designs. "They're serious about establishing these dedicated escort or defense squadron ships," O'neill commented. This whole thing made strange bed fellows they were talking, and had gotten more done with the Russians than they had the other members of NATO.

Of course it hadn't helped that France's ambassador had thrown a fit over the US's fleet plans, and demanded to bring things into a 'national consensus' whatever that was supposed to mean. So for the time being it meant the US and England were doubling down into research for the FX 303, with hopes to possible get the English into the Space Defense area with something like a Daedalus program, or maybe even a Prometheus.

It didn't look like that would pan out, not with the way all the Prometheus-class ships tended to have different lay outs. Right now the Prometheus-class was being shuffled between transport runs to drop things off at various offworld bases, and defense duty around Earth.

The Alpha site wasn't the only base being expanded. The plan was to build caches, and expand bases onto the other offworld facilities. The downside of this conflict was the old Hyperspace monitoring corridor project was obsolete.

The sudden and rapid, meaning within the last several years, implementation of new hyperdrive engines by the system lords meant they'd have minutes if that to notice a moving fleet. There was also the fact that their own new subspace sensors could warn them far better and could be based from Earth or other facilities without requiring additional planetary bases. So it meant for the time being those facilities were being put into mothball.

-scene break-

The funny thing was that Trask had made an assumption that mutants would be in Dakota and that if he sent a Sentinel he would find them. While there probably mutants in Dakota he hadn't found any. Most likely because they'd probably been recruited by Mystique, or Professor Xavier, or even Magneto directly. The most obvious peoples with superpowers weren't mutants, but rather the strain of metahumans known as bang babies.

I.E. something that the Sentinel had no interest in attacking because they didn't register as mutants. So the actual fighting had started because Hot Streak had decided he didn't want a giant flying robot flying over Dakota. Naturally the Sentinel had responded to the attack in self defense. That had been how the fight had started, and that'd been more than an entire hour ago.

Static, also known as Virgil Hawking rubbed his head, after he pushed his way out of the debris. Well on the plus side that psycho robot hadn't immediately attack him, on the downside he'd gotten caught in the collateral damage of the rocket fired at Hot Streak. He panted, and tapped his bluetooth, "Hey rich can you hear me,"... Static the robot had probably taken out a cell tower, or maybe one of the Ultimen had. This thing with the 'Sentinel' had caused the Government to pull out all the stops. There were national guard, and spooks all around them as well. He looked around, "Uh hold on I'll get everyone out, in a minute." This kind of thing was supposed to happen to places like Metropolis, and Gotham, Bang Babies were one thing, but really,"

"You look like you could use some help." One of the Ultimen shouted, Long Shadow or Storm Shadow or maybe it wasn't even something to do with shadow at all.

Virgil nodded, "Yeah that'd be great, how is dealing with the Robot coming?"

"It does not seem to be able to find its target," The metahuman remarked.

He nodded, "Okay lets get these people out." There was a ruffling of black shadows that caught, which Static really hoped wasn't Ebon. It turned out not to be, "Oh its you, don't suppose your boss has a stockpile of anti giant robot rockets?"

"We may have something along those lines," The man responded. There were a couple of other members of the Brotherhood with him.

Static tossed a piece of debris out of the way. He'd been kidding, but whatever if it helped they could hopefully finish this situation. "Thats great, lets get those after we save these people," Then looked at him, "Alva's about to do something stupid isn't he?" He wasn't even sure which Alva, but at this point it probably didn't matter.

"In a word yes." There was shuddering, and roar of a massive explosion, and then the crash, as the robot stumbled through the highway road.

Virgil groaned, "You know I know you said he's dying and all, but really couldn't you tell him to knock it off with all the super science testing?"

"I believe Alva would be more inclined to listen to you, than us." Still at least the members of the Brotherhood were moving to help with the injured.

Richie Folley flew down, "Uh hi guys, uhm well the robot is missing an arm, calling dibs on by the way," He stated quickly, "Anyway Alva and I think we have a solution, but we need to keep the thing from flying, and blowing up anymore buildings, then we're going to have to put out a fire."

"Let me guess the League is tied down in Bludhaven, and Metropolis still?"

The blond nodded, "Yep, half of Batman's rogue gallery and a bunch of other super villians are fighting them."

-scene break-

Anubis consulted his hyperspace display once again. It was a dangerous gambit, but as it was Baal was presently committed to assaulting Yu's forces. It would keep Yu's substantial fleet occupied moving back and forth. Anubis's forced would make the best of their superior hyperdrive systems to try and keep the most of Yu's fleet tied down. Had he been able to smile he would have been, one of the down sides of being non coporeal, but it couldn't be helped.

Still his fleet was arrayed. Even assuming that Raiden, or the Asgard could respond, and did. He would be able to make planetfall, which was what his goal was. Without reinforcements Raiden would not be able to spare the ships to prevent a multi hour long space battle, which would give him time to bring his own reserves up. The result of the fighting would horrendously damage Raiden's first fleet at least. This was after all the single largest massing of his new ships.

The Tuat-class Battleship was approximately named. Anubis had designed with the express purpose of countering the older Skybourne Calamity dreadnoughts, it was a dedicated anti capital ship warship. Its primary trade off was that it sacrificed fighter, and troop capacity for larger engines, and even some firepower to the stern of the ship. This trade off did allow the ship to maximize its its bow, port and starboard firing arcs.

It was a ship six hundred meters worth of pure killing power, with its preferred prey being other warships. Anubis's larger kilometer long warship shared many of the same traits. The Tuat, and its large cousin formed the heart of his capital ship line. The majority of the Ha'tak he'd been seizing these months past, had been upgraded, and handed over to Baal for this assault. It would weaken Yu's forces as well.

Thus even if the plan failed, and that was more likely than he would otherwise would have preferred, it would still be enough to keep the war on similar footing as it had been since the onset. The idea was of course to bleed Yu's fleet, while scouting Earth in force, as it was it was only a matter of time, before Raiden attempted to secure the Ancient facilities on the planet. Securing Atlantis was the key, the cache of ancient technology, the database on the city ship would be instrumental to a post war structure.

As it was neither side would be able to afford to keep this up, not with Cronus, and Heru'ur continuing to build. There was also the dozen of lesser concerns, and the worrying rumor about Ra, too many of his elements had never been accounted for after his supposed assassination at the hands of the Tauri, and it worried him even him.

His cowled hood bobbed at his first prime, "issuing final mobilization orders," The Jaffa proclaimed at the subtle gesture.

It had begun, first they would map Earth's ancient facilities, try and secure a few of them to gather what they could, and then try and hold. The next stages would be geared towards trying to push this into negotiations, at least until other plans could be laid down, and implemented.

"Hyperdrives prepared," After the jump it would take minutes, minutes to do what even decades ago would have taken weeks.

-scene break-

It had taken the Fleet Command at Hachimata minutes to process the data, and then double check it. After that it had been transmitted for review. With final confirmation established that yes sensors did indicate that a large, even by system lord standards, number of Anubis's ships just jumped to hyperspace. This normally would have been an issue any, but given that they were heading towards the Tauri system even more problematic.

Anubis had beaten them there, naturally. As it stood the massing ships had been running sensors hot sense before they arrived. Anubis had spared a single minor squadron to probe the Tauri defense forces, not that really there was much to be said. The Justice League's Watchtower was just as likely to be ignored as it was to be destroyed if current actions held true. Still Anubis's assembled fleet was well positioned, and while the Tauri could not doubt destroy the probing squadron it didn't make sense why they should.

Three measly Ha'tak, it made no sense. Why send them, unless he was attempting to parley with the Tauri, but why bring such a massing so visibly. The tauri had good sensors, it was their most refined bit of technology. As such it would have been impossible to hide the fleet.

A trio of Ha'tak ships was good it gave the ships the ability to support one another, a star was better, but it was still a traditionally sound placement. He had to be expecting something, the question was what. If it was Raiden's system defenses he would have sent more Ha'tak if the idea was to destroy them. So either it was some discussion group, or they were feelers that Anubis did not mind loosing.

Still the fleets were both in position. Around Anubis's forces were Euclid and Zam-Zah Mobile armors, with only a small fraction of the remaining fighter compliment being the Moebius. It was the new mobile armors and in particular the new Exus command mobile suits which concerned him.

He wanted to smirk though powerful the entire fleet would meet their end at the hands of the new type sevens, they and the ships only the awaited the orders of their god to act. At the same time there was a problem if this went hot, as the Tauri would say, then a lot of people were going to die.

After another fruitless few minutes of stand off Anubis appeared on the communication screen "Ah Raiden you are looking well." The other system lord commented, as he reviewed the latest reports from subspace. Thus far there were no sign of the Asgard, unless they were cloaked, which was possible.

There was no movement from either fleet, even fighters floated in space. An abrupt alpha strike from either side would kill hundreds, if not thousands, of course the retaliation would do the same.

"As is stands Anubis your actions are in direct violation of the system lord's decree." He stated neutrally, "The Tauri homeworld is a member of the Protected planets treaty."  
Anubis nodded, "I recognize the Treaty, but I do not see this as a violation," He commented, this was where the gambit started, "the time of the Asgard has passed, and quite frankly I am quite depleted of patience, so will excuse me if I don't want to bide my time, old friend."  
"Then sadly we have arrived at an impasse," It was possible that Anubis could make a legal argument that he wasn't violating the treaty for any number of a dozen different reasons. "However old friend. Let us resolve it, this war has carried on to long, do you believe Yu will allow this opportunity to slip away, you have launched an unprepared attack leaving a gaping hole in your defenses."

"It matters little, Yu otherwise occupied with Baal," Raiden nodded slightly, that did make more sense then, Yu wouldn't quit a battle he'd already committed to, "but you are right let us settle this." Anubis's image faded.

"My lord the rest of the Tauri fleet will not arrive for another few minutes."

He knew that, not that the handful of other ships the Tauri could muster would be much use against such numbers, "Then we will act as shielding hand till they arrive. Signal weapons release to level two." this fight would be determined solely by the guns of ships, and while stations, and fighters would no doubt play a role this was a battle between fleets. Raiden eyed the Tuat-class ships, and the larger ships. The Ha'tak would be trouble enough for the Tauri individually, but in numbers they would bother his ships as well. To say this was a mess was an understatement.

"Yes lord Raiden." The Jaffa answered,

"My lord," The Jaffa officer manning the sensors called, "another Ha'tak is moving toward the planet."

That made four, it didn't make sense, especially just sending one. "Transmit orders acknowledging all forces to begin combat operations," An Alpha strike had plenty of tactical opportunities associated, you could pick targets and focus fire far better than once the melee started. "that includes all facilities, Hinotama, Ark, and Lunar Facilities, as well as defense platforms are included."

The jaffa bowed acknowledging the order, and relaying those same orders. This mess was about to get a lot of men killed there was no helping that now.

Requiem beams fired across the void of space hitting Anubis's flank dead on. It wouldn't be enough. Anubis had carefully protected he key ships, even some of his first ships to fire had only caught suicidal Ha'tak in their guns. Of course those surviving shield ships were no doubt laden with anti aircraft guns. Still as expected there was a smattering of heavy damage.

Anubis's counter battery tore across space, he ignored the stations that had fired. In truth they'd rarely have the option too few had guided missiles capable of threatening capital ships without getting shot down.

'Pity the Umbrella network is not yet complete.' the Shinto system lord regretted, then again he was regretting that Anubis counter attack would hit back in moments. The First couple shots streaked past, and then the hits came..

The batteries were focused toward his larger ships. Thirty to forty ships rattled, fourteen ships dropped from formation, and another three exploded outright from the counter barrage. "Can we fire **GENESIS** One yet?" He demanded, as he examined the hits landed on his second and third squadrons with a grimace.

"Yes my lord it just entered positional vectoring." The Jaffa announced bringing the firing profile up to the main screen. "It will be in alignment optimum firing position will be achieved in 820 seconds."  
Thirteen minutes was a long time for a battle, but if they could catch the bulk of Anubis's fighters in the beam, or possibly escorts it'd be possible to mount critical strike operations against Anubis's larger ships. "Have the fleet accelerate to full combat speed." Both fleets seemed to move into action at roughly the same time.

Anubis's Tuat battleships fired. Raiden's Dreadnoughts responded to the black battleships' challenges. These were accompanied by other larger vessels, including what appeared a larger version, at more than one thousand meters is length. At this size the ships showed obvious Alteran influences, and even a bit of Asgard inheritance in their form.

The Tuat shifted moving interdict dreadnoughts. The two classes began to exchange rapid fire bursts of energy. Raiden frowned as he realized the Tuat though smaller were better suited to the fight between the two as they could bring nearly their entirety of their guns against the enemy. The dreadnoughts would be able to hold their own for some time, but he'd probably loose most of the second and third squadrons.

Heelk'sha Motherships almost sixteen hundred meters in length fell into formation to attempt to waylay the Libras accompanying Raiden, and additional larger ships began to pair off going to occupy the Granshiro and Peacemillion.

The Granshiro-class heavy battleships had an easier time against them being able to focus the majority of their fire towards the other capitalships. The Peacemillion had a similiar success, but with Anubis's two larger battleship classes converging on his Libras he knew this was going to be a mess, especially as reports confirmed the Jurisprudence was taking sustained fire without support. Raiden cursed the guns of the Heelk'sha as they spread out.

Anubis's Ha'tak had moved to deal with Raiden's smaller warhships. The Ha'tak for the time being were the least of his concern. They would be easy fodder, but Anubis wouldn't care to loose them either. Anubis had had the advantage of having the time to sortie all of his fighters, while some of Raidens ships were still launching. Euclid mobile armors skitted about, against the seven generation mobile suits they were pitted.

Zam-Zah supported the Ha'tak, in firing against the mobile suits.

Raiden new that Anubis would regret not destroying his stations in several minutes, but until then he had to deal with the bristling line of capital ships. Whatever Anubis's strategy was it seemed to focus on spreading his capital ship hunters out against specific targets while consolidating ha'tak, and escorts, between flagship and his defenses. It would make more sense if this was a defensive engagement, but Anubis was the one intruding into a system. Still it was the reason Raiden kept his first squadron back, perhaps the Tauri had some new weapon, or perhaps Anubis expected the Asgard.

Anubis realized something was up when twelve minutes when initial fighter groups from Raiden's forces had broken away. Still the bulk of Ha'tak were largely intact, and knew that Raiden was unlikely to commit the bulk of his fighters until he protect his Libra-class ships. That was about the time his sensors screamed about radiation warnings.

The gamma radiation, though invisible to the mortal eye, the beam created a visible path by exiting the particles of space. Yet it did its job. Admittedly it be would be another two hundred eighty seconds before the second **G**amma **E**mission by **N**uclear **E**xplosion **S**timulate **I**nducing **S**ystem station could be fired, and another ninety seconds after that the first could be re fired.

Anubis grimaced the Gamma Radiation beam seared across his light elements, and a sizable portion of his mobile armors near his Ha'tak group. His Ha'tak still largely were intact thanks to their shield integrity. Raiden had made a point to not even waste shots against the Hat'ak.

Closer to Earth the Lunar facility deployed its computer controlled mobile suits. To harass the three, now four Ha'tak in orbit over the Tauri homeworld. The Watchtower rotated unsure whether to fire or not, its shields might stand up to a few shots from a Ha'tak.

Still floating around the world boxes slowly rotated. Anubis had not bothered with trying to jam communication, in fact he'd not even bothered with shots on earth, just yet. The explosive charges blew the doors off the boxes. Several missiles simply went wide, others failed to actually detonate but still more than a hundred were good hits. The massive result of so many naquadah enhanced missiles obliterated sizable portions of the struck Ha'tak. All four were dead, either completely blown to pieces or floating missing sizable chunks of super structure and baked by radiation.

For Anubis loosing four measly Ha'tak was nothing. Anubis didn't bother to even curse the loss of the ships. His flagship, and its escorts were already moving closer to the planet and even wasn't very concerned about the massing Tauri air groups.

One of his Jaffa presented the image of a sea going vessel on the planet, launching the winged craft, no doubt to attempt to interdict his fighters. The Tauri also had ground facilities as well to launch them. The station in orbit seemed to possess a similar capacity, but seemed uninvolved at the moment.

"Transfer another group of Ha'tak, shoot down any more munitions," He snapped, it was incompetence that they'd gotten taken by surprise by that attack. No doubt that had been the way the Tauri had destroyed Apophis's two ha'tak years ago. Well now they had gone and tipped their hands. As it turned out the Tauri did not seem to lack for volume for nuclear devices seeing as another two Ha'tak exploded, but the other four made it into orbit. "Destroy one of their launch ships, and deploy fighters, and watch for more of those atomic devices." He growled. Yes this had to be the way they had destroyed Apophis's two ha'tak massed atomic fire, it made plenty of sense.

Another of the Shinku Rai Tatsu class vessels fired its positron cannons destroying a Tuat class battleship. A third of the Shinku Rai Tatsu class fired its kinetic naval guns the munitions split the prow of another Tuat open to the unrelenting vacuum of the void space. The class was quite suited to the task being twice the length, and nearly twice the width of the battleship's they were fighting. It took minutes for an SRT-class command ship to punch through the shields of the enemy battleships. Both vessels turned bearing down on the remains of the third squadron, and focusing on the remains of Anubis's elements attacking them.

"My lord Anubis's Fleet is becoming very close to the Tauri Homeworld." By this point his unattached capital ships were beginning to consolidate, no doubt Anubis intended to use them to attack in a concerted manner.

The Shinto system Lord sighed. "Rei order Shinko Kumo and Shinko Ame to take up position over the southern pole have Lumiere defend the Alteran outpost." Anubis was probably going to try and make landings at a number of Alteran facilities on the planet and as it was this was going to still be a messy fight.  
"Lord Raiden massive launch of Tauri fighters from planets surface." A jaffa declared bringing up the sensor read out.

He wondered what had taken them so long, and then took the time to survey the sensor data. Most of them were air breathing jets, restricted to atmospheric combat, but there was a massive volume of forces.  
"Shinko Kumo and Shinku Ame have arrived over southern pole," Good at least something was going properly. They just needed to make sure Anubis couldn't get through the roughly kilometer of ice.

"Confirming multiple targeting data, brace for impact." Anubis's flaship's main cannon's beam flashed across space, and slammed into the nearest Libra-class Super Heavy Command vessel. A second pulse fired powered from the massive capacity of Alteran derived power systems. This second pulse smashed against the Shinku Rai Tatsu's shields bleeding through in places. "damage on decks." A third pulse hit another Libra-class on the side, doing minimal damage, but slowing the somewhat smaller, compared to Anubis's command vessel, ship.

Raiden grimaced, "Status of the main gun?"

"Operational,"

He nodded, "Then tell them to focus on knocking his main gun offline, then hit his sublight drives, all ships fire." Anubis's flagship visibly shook at the energy transfer from the barrage.

"Sadayo-taicho reports his vessel is reporting feedback damage from his main gun, they do not estimate to be able to repair the system quickly"

Raiden nodded, to be expected, and no doubt why Anubis had fired first. He flicked his hands across holographic display. As it was Anubis was launching landing craft some which had entered the atmosphere. The Ha'tak were spreading out no doubt to insure there were no further unfortunate surprises. Anubis was going to land troops, which meant that they would have to do the same. "Consolidate our squadrons together," His heavy ships had taken the brunt of the assault most looking fifty to sixty percent of their number. Three in Four of his dreadnoughts were either destroyed or had sustained such damage they were no longer mobile. By the time Anubis had made the choice to consolidate his capital ships, his kilometer long ships had suffered over forty percent losses and the Heelk'sha were just below that. Even now those ships were consolidating and pulling back circling around towards earth in as best of order as they could.

So far they were still attempting to by all accounts mount an invasion of Europe, which was not a good sign. He was already overlaying all Alteran facilities anywhere near the continent. There were several notable blips that could be choice targets, and honestly he was rather surprised that the Tauri had not discovered the facilities in Rome, but that was another concern entirely. Of course Anubis looked to be ignoring the entire Italian Peninsula, so those targets weren't a concern. A projection of Europe appeared a large red circle extended over the southern United Kingdom and northern France. He barked orders to start broadcasting the data they had. It wasn't likely to be much, but hopefully the Tauri could spare some effort to their own defenses. As it was he'd probably need the help considering then number of dropships.  
-scene break-

The bulk of Anubis's immdediate landing forces had touched down in England of all places. With the warning, and the confirmation of the Justice Leage the landing had basically warranted the deployment of all the heroes of Earth to that spot.

The Justice League had promised rides to anyone need the transport to England and other invasion hotspots. Some Governments had promised pardons to those super villains, or other criminals willing to aid in the common defense of the planet. While it was a controversial move if the numbers could contain Anubis's forces so be it was the idea behind the strategy.

Anubis's goal was local European dominance, namely England, and France, with extended elements deployed to other regions. In truth the battle for Paris was a minor side not to where Anubis's forces were moving on Glastonbury Tor, and the area known for its standing stones. The Tauri people called it Stonehenge. The fact of the matter was this location was an Alteran shield facility, one which like still possessed weapons as well.

Static and Gear were walking away from the newly landed Javelin that the Justice League had provided, when lightning blast had come crashing down over one of the hills, "Any chance you can do that Static, cause artillery would be great?" Gear asked looking out over the battle.

"Fuck you Gear," grumbled Virgil Hawking. They'd ridden over with the Ultimen, and some of the other volunteers. Other people though had chosen to hang back, or go to Canada to help with the groups that had landed there. A few of the other Meta humans who had also arrived to help chuckled at the duo.

He snorted, "Not a chance bro," Gear tapped his controls, "So maybe we should have stayed in America," He commented, "Looks like some of the aliens landed over there too," Anubis had taken some pot shots at communication satellites, or his Jaffa had as the case was. "Navy says that they've lost contact with a carrier battlegroup too." He added a little more sober.

"Well we're here now, how are we going to run this?"  
Richie tapped his controls, "Uhm, yeah give me a minute, oh shit New York is under attack. Hell most the eastern seaboard expects alien touch downs, west coast too from the warnings they're releasing." The link patched him into dozens of different feeds, "Uh okay we've got British Army units, and their police heading we should probably help them out. Also we need to take out the enemy mobile armors."  
"What the hell if a mobile armor Gear?"

"Giant Robot."  
Static groaned, "Why is it always giant robot, okay so what do we know about the aliens, cause you know at least Hawkgirl has huge wings?"

"All I can tell is that one side worships Anubis," After assuring everyone that yes as in the Jackal headed god of death, "and the other worships Raiden, no not from Mortal Kombat, though that would be cool too. Oh and both of them have giant robots"

"Of course they do," Static grumbled.

-scene break-

Portals opened in the air, and on the ground and in general all across the planet at least wherever Anubis was invading. There was a general call to arms involved, but the portals were only one method. Various government, well those that could sent their armies to trouble spots, and if they had them super soldiers too. Even the Inquisition showed up to some sight, and other such shadowy organizations arrived where they could.

Some Wizards appeared in loud pops signaling apparition, most of the wizards who did show up were American or French, and showed to help their respective countries, especially with the battle for Paris going. The varying Mutants arrived in there varying manners bringing with them other empowered and even regular humans ready to join the fight to be against Anubis's ground troops across the globe.

"Why did we have to fly out to Colorado exactly?" Cornelia demanded, "What if they attack Heatherfield, what if Phobos attacks."

A throat cleared, "That would be a problem, as I cannot be in two places at once," The prince remarked, "and our enemies are the same this day." He didn't like that fact but he couldn't help it, Sithis had been clear, assist in the defense of earth. No vocal threats, but one did not defy the Dread Father.

The blonde guardians crossed her arms over her chest, "Sure we are, and why should we believe you're hear to help us."

"The Dread Father commands it," He snapped irritably, "Your world is currently under invasion, and one does not defy the father of all, no matter what you may think I am not so stupid as to defy my betters." Phobos growled, which was true as long as he thought he wouldn't get away with the defiance.

Elijah snorted, "Of course he commands it boy," The larger man was covered with splatted blood, some of it didn't look human, or at least normal human. "That one child's life is worth more than this entire plant to an old god. Only a fool threatens a world with invasion that houses a sworn, and now Arkay has a foothold with an army in New York damn it all." He flicked the heavy saber in his hand. "Now I would suggest we get moving for all of this gets out of hand more than it already is." It was naturally about that time that one of Anubis's mobile armors went slamming into the mountains courtesy of the phasing hero known to earth as the Martian Manhunter. "I rest my case,"

The guardians looked at each other, and then at Phobos, and then at the larger man, and stopped for a moment to have a group talk. Phobos spared the Black Hand a look, "You see this is what I have to deal with, they take only their own council."

"Oh pipe down," Elijah grunted, "There are three thousand Jaffa, and plenty of other troops flying Anubis's banners. Some of them with closer bastardizations than the goa'uld have used before," He flexed his other gauntlet-ed hand, the glyphs flashed for a minute emitting a series of chirps,

Phobos perked at the sound. "Archons?" He queried.

"Wait you understood that?" Taranee asked.

Elijah flicked his fingers, "There are enemies to kill," He breathed, and then lunged upwards hurtling up onto the partially destroyed overpass.

"He can fly?"  
"No, but he can jump good." Phobos admitted, "The brotherhood considers flight to be the realm of machines, flight by magic is frowned on by tradition." Which he had never quite understood, but who could say why the million year old order of mystic killers did things like that.

-scene break-

Constantinos half a continent away snarled furiously swinging his sword through the Jaffa's throat. The black material of the blade sliced clean, a pulse of magic rippling through the naquadah laced alloy of the man's throat guard like nothing. The red blood blackened under the magic as it stained the glass. He whispered the prayers, as he swept around, the old tongue flowed around the words of the dragon of the night, as his blade drove into two more jaffa. The sword punched through stomach, and out their backs before pulling back and free and to their next pray, and the next offering to Sithis.

This war, this battle for Earth would tell the humans much about how Goa'uld development played out now. If the humans of this world had any smarts at all they'd recognize that these black warriors were using weapons derived from the Old Enemy's hand weapons. The gloves were primitive reproductions yes, but the design was still effective enough. The legacy of ancient powers tended to be. The refinements of armor were a new occurrence, but showed that the Goa'uld were developing. The new armor was an improvement, designed to better protect against plasma, and the Tauri bullets as well.

His gauntlets flared and glowed with the flashing of the glyphs along his forearms echoing with the chirping, and he smiled. There was the light rapid pulses of blue and dozens of lights, hyper dense bolts, flashed out. The Jaffa fell about the room.

"I've got admit that was impressive."

He nodded, "Long ago there was a war in heaven, the goa'uld merely make primitive copies the weapons of that era even this day. Come," He tapped the data input panel, as it was this was going to be a mess. "Sithis walks,"

"Isn't that a good thing?"

Constantinos started for a minute, "In this no, Stendarr, and Arkay will walk as well. At the same time so may others," He flicked the sword, it was shorter than Elijah's heavy saber, nearly fully straight. "This planet is a battleground. Come, the Black Hand gathers for this continent, those who can make it. Those who cannot are called in service to our god elsewhere on this world, great battles join."

Boom jumped down off the banister, and onto one of the shelves filled with books, knocking it over. "Guys now would be a good time to get down."

Constantinos swallowed, thanking every star in the sky that he'd had the good sense to convince Arkay's sworn to take a group far far away from him. The explosion blew out much of the second story of the building. He brushed the dust off his protective armor, most it was from the demolished plaster of the build. If this got much more out of hand the Dread Father's fleet would surely arrive. Still perhaps that was for the best, there was a chirping from his gauntlets, a low series of tones. More jaffa, and then reinforcements from the national guard, and from Anubis's other enemies.

Boom-Boom gave a forced smile, "Sorry about the explosion?" She laughed a little. "So whats the plan exactly, Scott thinks we should leave."

"We will be, very quickly"

-scene break-

Raiden collapsed inside his personal chambers, he'd barely been able to make it in time to avoid a disgraceful display on his pel'tak. He heaved violently, nearly choking on his body's own tongue. His eyes burned, black working into them. His bones cracked restructuring, and soft silk warped into something else. Raiden blacked out from the pain as the Dread Father snarled rising.

He no longer cared who's catspaw Anubis was, he had minutes, if that to finish this before Arkay or Stendarr reached this miserable site. He stormed through the doors, barking orders at the Jaffa, and vanished in a swirl leaving the jaffa to counter their blessings, and pray.

Batman looked around, and swallowed. Flash and Superman were tied down on the East Coast each with their own league teams. Green Lantern, John Stewart, was in Paris with Hal, and Vigilant. J'onn was deployed with his team in Colorado. On the plus side at least he hadn't had to be the one to summon Sithis this time. "I assume you have a plan?"

"A swift death." Sithis hissed, "Anubis seeks access to the ruins," No doubt their power generation facilities to activate the facilities on the island.

Grodd eyed the two, "Okay besides the magic, which I can respect as a good as reason as any why are you in charge? I am not objecting, I merely wish to hear the reasoning," The gorrilla proclaimed hastily as the cluster of Europe's Black Hand who could make it shifted.

The battle on the ground had already begun. In truth that while there were countless other landing locations everyone had rushed towards the first one before the others had touched down. So Wiltshire, effectively the whole county, was a warzone. There thousands of Jaffa fighting, at least a quarter of as many Kull Warriors. Those would be the real cause of casualties amongst the humans.

Anbuis expelled a massive blast of hellish green flame, a million times more powerful than the mortal derived Fiend Fyre. Of course Anubis had no need concern himself with such concerns as his baleful flames surged outward. Then he stopped, "I see, I had wondered about that war," He meant a conflict long ago, so long ago that few even remembered the legends of it. Anubis's shell tightened his grip, "You are not Raiden, and you should not be here."

"You think I am early, or you are naïve, or perhaps ignorant."

Anubis lifted his head, or at least appeared that way, "You are a Daedra, I know that much I know you shouldn't be here."

"You threatened what is mine, by rights older than your entire species I am here," He stated the sword hissed glowing silver, and infinite blackness, "My word is my bond as I said it is done." The blade flashed, even as Anubis attempted a single attack, which flared harmlessly against his robes. Whatever was left Raiden could deal with, it was only of limited concern. He could deal with the issue of just whatever Anubis had been intending with the Ancient facilities, well that would have to be once he handled the issue of finishing the fight in space. In an instant of breath Raiden woke, gritting his teeth, "Damn it," He grunted.

"Raiden-sama what are your orders?" A jaffa asked.

"We return to the Shinku Rai Tatsu," The system lord ordered, "and return to space to secure the orbits, immediately," He teleported away.

-scene break-

Phobos looked around the city in Colorado, it was a mess, but that was to be expected after all of this. He inhaled the faint tremor of fading adrenaline rattled his hands, giving them a shake that he normally did not have. Still he could manage an annoyed glare at the

Guardians of Earth, which they were fine with returning. It was Elijah, and the archons, who were all suddenly kneeling that put Phobos back to alert, he hastily curtseyed to the lord of the void.

"I see you have this well in hand," He remarked, "The Hand convenes Elijah, and you are sorely missed amongst their council, take your talon. I will handle any task which you might be needed for here." Sithis remarked.

Elijah nodded rising, and gesturing for his Executioner. "As you will, sir."

Phobos took a step to the side as the portal rippled open. "The inhabitants were able to rally to the defense godfather," He began, "the mobilization was most effective, damage is surely minimal compared to expectations thank to this most rapid response. Perhaps then such discussions could be convened."  
"Why are you still here?" Cornelia demanded, "Go away." She snapped at Phobos, "You clearly want to leave, so go on."

Sithis snorted, "In time I will see him off, yes. My word on it." He promised, "Still though the question is do you know your purpose. So do you know your goal yet?"  
"No." commented the prince interjecting.  
The Dread Father glowered at him, "I did not ask you Phobos, still it as good a time as any to bring this up. You bear the heart of Kandrakhar, and your four are entrusted an element. You are meant to be guardians, for this world, for another, and for others. It will be in time your decisions that carry the weights of billions of souls." He stated, "And for you this may seem as a vast responsibility, but in truth it is only the beginning. This era is dying." He warned, and Elijah had given them the same warning. That the Lord of Order had awakened. "Phobos," He swept his hand, "Is no threat to this world, as you can see attested by his heeding the call."

"And your saying he's not a threat?" Will at least sounded incredulous at the notion. Sure the prince had come to help, but he'd been the first to admit that Phobos hadn't volunteered per se.  
He nodded, "Indeed little one, his actions pose no danger to Earth's welfare." The lord of the void held up a hand to silence the keeper, "I said Earth's welfare. He means this world no ill will, nor will he act against it, especially not in malice, because I will not permit such actions. There are many things you do not know yet, and time will be one of the only teachers you will have." Sithis rounded on the prince, "Phobos I would have had you see them home, but as I said to them I will uphold," He flicked his wrist rending a gash in space, "Go home, you have done well."

The blonde nodded, and all but fled through the portal. Cornelia snorted, "See us home yeah right."

"I will deliver you all home as well,"  
"Wait what?" And then the world flashed, and they were back in Heatherfield and the dark god was gone. After all he had things to do.

-scene break-

Raiden was still jittery hours later. It was hours after the Asgard had arrived in force around the planet, naturally after he'd done the bulk of the work. After his fleet had suffered through the ardous task of blooding Anubis's forces. He would have preferred to stay on sight, but was in no condition to do so.

He would need to convene with Saki, and Talpa. Saki had apparently been drawn directly into the fighting in New York when one of the dropships had crashed into one of the foot building. It had apparently forced an uneasy alliance between the Shredder's public face and the turtles. Talpa in the meanwhile had been forced into a similar situation, along with having to assist the Justice League.

By all reports the mortal media were already crowing. Apparently many heroes and villians of the Tauri had banded together for the common good. Now of course the vultures would be coming out. Of course he would leave damage control to Saki, that was his realm.

Yu's Prime Minister had called to inform him of his Emperor's success in repulsing the many pronged assaults by Baal. The Jade Emperor's fleet was even now still finishing off the remaining skirmishes, and reinforcing their position. Baal, and perhaps Anubis's other allies would not doubt divvy up the fallen system lord's territories. Some of the fallen lord's realm would still likely be seized by others, that was just the way of things.

The Asgard had no doubt waited until both sides had done their worst to one another before making their appearance. Their appearance in force though spoke of the possibility of future Asgard boldness. Something that hadn't been seen in centuries, it was not likely a good sign.

Raiden traced a hand softly done Artemis's shoulder as he stared at the map that had appeared before him. It was a map of the Milky Way, particularly of Goa'uld space. "And of the Tauri?" She asked.  
"They'll play their part, after all they have been all along even the Asgard haven't realized it yet. Delays aside they should be ready… with the base set up we should be prepared to offer assistance to help them develop," He would have offered the Tauri help with cleaning up the remnants of Anubis's landed troops, but that was something the Tauri would no doubt have well in hand by this point. They seemed very adept at the concept of massing fire. "For the next few months it will be an era of tumultuous peace, if we are fortunate." OF course the opposite could always hold true, and Baal could consolidate Anubis's holdings in full, that would be a problem, especially given Raiden's own interests.

He knew of course he'd need to reconstitute his personal fleet. Naturally in the wake of Anubis's defeat he would be expected to convene his vassals in full. Yu would no doubt do the same once he returned to his own homeworld as well. He expected that his chief ally would begin redeploying his fleet in anticipation of the no doubt critical High Council of the System Lords meeting that would be convened soon.

-Chapter Conclusion-


	31. Chapter 31 Aftermath I

Chapter 31

Lightning Fervor

Helltanz's Notes:

-Chapter begin-

Colorado was a mess, then again so were a lot of other places. At the same time though it certainly could have been worse. O'neill muted the television as it yet again replayed the greeting that Thor's Hologram had played when the Asgard Fleet had arrived in orbit, that had been the space battle had been well and truly decided. "So neural damage?"

"Yeah, I mean we thought have been the Martian Manhunter, you know," The medical examiner from Area 51 began, "But looking at it, it looks a lot more like a goa'uld hand device, but its a lot faster."  
Jack nodded, "So not torture." Studies of the crashed ship, and what they already knew about the Goa'uld in general said that the Goa'uld had based a lot of their technology over bits and pieces scavenged from the ancients, and other races.

"All of them died within seconds of acute aneurysms, as a result of some kind of exposure to something like the Harakesh." The doctor brought up the brain scans, "I mean we've seen things like this, but this is concerning. I mean the sword cuts were weird on some of the other corpses, but superheroes what are you going to do, besides decapitation seems to work well on Anubis's supersoldiers" He pulled out another file, "Yeah well we've cataloged most the bodies we're dividing them up,"

He thumbed through the file, "These ones look like they got hit by Kull weapons fire, any indication what happened."  
"SHIELD is currently investigating the reports of humans equipped with highly advanced alien assisting in the defense of Colorado. We're also investigating similar reports back east as well." The SHIELD agent stated, "We have limited video evidence but most of our data is coming from eye witnesses." The agent didn't seem all that happy with that little facet, "As it stands there were at least two teams present fighting against the invasion. Three individual groups seems more likely, and obviously some independents were available."

Nobody was going to like that news. The Justice League was one thing, and even them the government had an issue, especially with the Watchtower and all. "More than one great," The NID wouldn't let them hear the end of that any time soon. "Well at least we didn't get to be the guys who got saved by Bane." The mercenary had gotten caught up in a firefight on the east coast, and had ended up leading an entire national guard platoon to safety during the invasion. There was a bunch of footage on the internet with merc running around with a mk 48 light machine gun cutting down jaffa.

"I suppose," The agent agreed, "There was the pardon offer, which I suppose is in effect, but the guy has still gone to ground." He shrugged, "Well I don't imagine we'll get much more information than this at the moment. We should head back, and I'll run the data through our files, maybe the witness descriptions, or the video footage will give us something to work with." He didn't sound all that hopeful.

O'neill nodded, there were talks about possible finalizing a Joint American Anglo Sphere Space Force Training program, especially now that the English had found those Ancient Ruins under stonehenge. They'd probably find some more as well. It certainly was going to given the English some negotiating power.

-scene break-

"I don't like this," John Stewart remarked, "And for that matter we have to do something we need to be better prepared for these kind of things."

Flash nodded, "Yeah well its not our only problem, you'll never guess what we caught during the invasion." He tapped turned the projector on, there was high security cell on the Watchtower that shouldn't have been occupied, but it was.

J'onn muttered something in Martian, "You said you captured him during the invasion, how did this happen?"  
"We got lucky, Booster Gold was monitoring some of the data, and we got a bing from one of the bat's databases." Flash announced, "He was masquerading as one of the Jaffa guys, "We haven't really been able to get much out of him."

Batman looked up, "Then this could be indeed a problem, our problem is that Earth simply does not have the technology to counter the threat of invasion."  
"Sounds like a job for our billionaires, and geniuses,"

The dark knight glowered at Flash, that was probably exactly why Luthor was so buddy buddy with Cadmus these days. "Its not simply that, we need a crash development program, and that means expanding the league even more. Its time we established the junior teams. At the very least we need to establish a flagship team to demonstrate the concept."

"Who are we going to assign to it?" Superman asked, "There aren't that many available choices, and I'm still not sure about putting together a team with kids on it. I mean Kara is one option," It would keep her off the frontline at least.

John Stewart looked up, "One of the Robins is a good as choice as any, Kara wouldn't like the effective demotion this would be seen as. Besides we really do need the two of you available for regular league duties. At this point I'd say we offer Galatea an invite too,"

"I don't know if she's interested in joining the League," Diana remarked, "She helps out with Gotham but with a kryptonian city now crime is down significantly." Well a Kryptonian that lacked Superman's rogue gallery. As is stood where Kara couldn't wait to join in full with the league her clone seemed to have more interest in the civilian field of the things, "There is also the fact her technical aptitudes are off the charts, if Bruce is serious about developing new technology she might be better suited there."

John frowned and shook his head a little in an unsure gestured, "I don't know, we probably need to extend the invite. If she's not interested thats one thing, but if she is, well the League really could use another Kryptonian, even just on the reserve roster. All I'm saying is ask."

"This sounds reasonable," J'onn remarked, "And we will have to deal with our univited shapeshifting guest soon, but for now we should consider our other situation. Now that the invasion is finished there are other concerns." The outcry after the invasion had been a bit muted primarily because this was the consecutive invasion in several years. There were of course some rioting, and protests over the situation, but the multitude of alien battle fleets showing up had done a lot to convince most sane people that some of the precautions had clearly been necessary.

The down side was it clearly also hadn't been enough to stop the invasion. There was also the issue about the government putting nukes in space, and building space ships.

-scene break-

Moody sipped at his potion, Pomfrey had insisted that he'd been lucky to just break an arm in the fighting. The fighting had been pretty bad at Glastonbury Tor. Of course now that everything was over the Ministry was throwing a massive fit. Then again considering there was more than one giant robot crashed into the Thames. Some of the purist hardliners were ranting about how those things had to be magic, but the ministry didn't expect to have to cover them up. Not that that would have been easily doable anyway, considering the teams responsible were crawling with muggle soldiers, and even a handful of superheroes.

"So the Asgard ships arriving triggered this activation of the device," Utgard's for lack of a better term junk collection was a number of things, but the star map was the thing that they tended to be the most interested in. The new changes to the map represented more than a thousand years of political shifting with in the galaxy.

The change was actually a prepared update packet in all Asgard systems to uplinnk to active Asgard systems. It was in theory used to insure updates, and patches, and such for computer systems. Utgard had made slight tweaks to the program to allow his repositories to get updates whenever an Asgard ship passed by.

Hermione nodded, "I'd guess its some kind of computer network link, like the internet and program updates," She speculated, there were a collection of blank looks, and she had to remind herself that the internet was a relatively new thing, "basically its a self updating book," a self updating book in a dialect of ancient Norse that took ages to translate. Still at least this time she actually got some looks of understanding.

"I should think that makes sense, the explanation of the ships crossing the sea of the stars makes sense," Dumbledore remarked, and Hermione had to stop from exclaiming that space was not an ocean, "We know that those involved with the battle all do employ such vessels."

It was funny that wizards were taking spacefaring gods from myths so much better than the rest of the world. At least Hermione had been able to get over the human like aliens after the Thanagarian Invasion. "So do we have any idea what happened at Stonehenge by chance?"

"Best we can guess is magic of some kind," Shacklebolt remarked, right now the Justice League, and the muggles had the whole area cordoned off, "Other than that, no what we do know is that there was an energy blast at the newly discovered underground portion and that we know it interferes with portkeys, and apparition." and other forms of teleportation including the Asgard, and the League's own. "As it is we don't know whether it will dissipate or not."

Dumbledore nodded, "Well that it is a lot of new information, we should consider that the Order concern ourselves perhaps with taking it easy. Focusing on research may give us just the edge to turn the tide against the Death Eaters." Dumbledore had been able to acclimate a lot better than Voldemort to the situation of active superheroes from the muggle world, "Now has there been any news from the muggle world?" He meant more accurately any more information on Vandal Savage.

"He's been on a couple talk shows." Bill remarked, "I saw him in Egypt last month with another exploratory group. Its mainly been talk shows, I mean the muggles say he was involved with defense during the invasion, but we're more likely to hear more about that in the coming weeks."

The headmaster nodded, "Well hopefully Tom will keep quiet in the wake of the invasion as he usually does after these things, and we can gather additional information. I think given the situation we should remain vigilant for any other 'game changers'."

-scene break-

Everyone was a little off balance. This wasn't the outcome people had expected. Anubis wasn't supposed to die like this, he should have been the one to kill him, after a long drawn out war that left one side the clear victor. It shouldn't have been like this.

Officially the war with Anubis was over, which officially was the explanation for the tenuous 'peace' that had returned to Goa'uld Space. Within Goa'uld terms that meant all the fighting accounted for nothing more serious then a few minor skirmishes thus far at least. It was now the month of May on the Tauri homeworld more than a month had passed.

Thus far he still had no leads on what Anubis had been hoping to accomplish. With Anubis, and the fleet that had accompanied him to earth destroyed there no hope for definitive answers any time soon. As it was the system lords were already moving on, as were the Tauri. Baal had officially laid claim to Anubis's territories, which was to be expected, since Thoth, and Osiris were the only others with a hope to claim it. The problem of course was Baal's petition to lay claim to a long coveted spot amongst the Goa'uld's High Council of System Lords.

If Baal were to be admitted it would unbalance the Council, at least numerically. Baal's addition would bring the number to six, as it was Sokar's re admittance to the body before Anubis's return had been little more than a stumbling block. Admitting Baal would be more of an issue, even though Baal's domain now more than justified the addition.

Of course Sokar was also busy. He'd made sure to insure his fleet had made a show of force around Earth. He had not been the only one, Sokar had been joined by Heru'ur and Cronus as well.

Of course Cronus's abrupt scrambling had been an interesting shift in policy. Normally the old system lord was far more reserved, but the sudden offensive did take advantage of several vulnerabilities along the territories which bordered his. Cronus had probably been looking for something that Anubis had had in his possession, but for now there was no way to tell what that would be.

Yu had made the announcement that his visit to the Tauri would be more dignified. He'd gone a step forward to announce that any further breaches of the protected planets treaty would result in harsh consequences from the Fleet of the Jade Emperor. That was the good news at least seeing as Raiden knew he needed to take the time to reconstitute his personal fleet after the battle for Earth.

The Tauri though they had their own concerns. Apparently they, they must have gotten a hold of some of Anubis's data on the lost city. IT was certainly more of a potential concern than the so called Jaffa rebellion. That was nothing more than several disjointed factions, divided along liberal, traditional, moderate, and then further divided by their attitudes towards others. Some of those could be described, in the Tauri's fashion, as ultra nationalists. Of course there were others who were eager to ally with the Tauri, despite the home world's rather strange alliances. Still with Anubis defeat and then destruction, Baal had assumed control in the resulting power vacuum.

On Earth the march of the renowned heroes, and subsequent battle between the two system lords, and the battles broadcast world wide by Tauri news agencies had garnered much attention. The News Agencies though had focused heavily on fighting, and as well as the massing of nuclear weapons in space.

The Tauri fretted about such strange things, as far as Raiden was concerned. Still the presence of so many of 'Earth's finest and worst' had allowed him to analyze any potential with the ability to compare.

It was a pity about the Asgard showing up. As far as the Goa'uld were concerned the Tauri were worried about pointless little things as the goa'uld trifled with the worries of a possible civil war. There were various concerned raised, particularly amongst the members of the United Nations members, and specifically the Security Council. There were countless smaller issues that had non government agencies concerned as well in the aftermath of the agency.

Raiden leaned back such a mess all of this was. "Forward me the latest reports regarding the fleet construction underway by the Tauri," He ordered.

-scene break-

Xavier release had been relatively easy to secure, as far as such things went. Arkay had reasons of his own to support such a move so that coupled with other parties interested had meant there were plenty of angles to redirect suspicion at. "Some groups have taken to view mutant kind with open distrust."

The fallout before the invasion had been hard enough to settle given the time that it had taken to secure his peaceful release. It was easy to see that SHIELD's motivations were hardly out of charity either. The plans were already in place to go forward and speak before a congressional committee, but there were worries that the damage might have already be done.

"Its not fair, I didn't see a bunch of these protestors fighting the invasion on the streets and on the beaches, and in the skies," Evan sneered glaring at the television, quoting a part of Churchill's famous speech. "

The professor held up a placating hand, "While I do not agree with the actions taken we must make the best the best of the situation. For now we must accept that current divisions are for the safety of the Institute. Logan if you would?"

"With Bayville like this we're split up, and with as many guards we're gonna have a fight on our hands," Wolverine remarked gruffly.

Scott crossed his arms, "Storm's not going to get anywhere with these hearings, and the Xmen are divided over this whole thing."

"I understand Magneto has been busy, and is still very busy. Especially in the wake of talks of this mutant registration bill." That was an understatement. Before the invasion Magneto had been trying to reassert his control over Mystique's students, that hadn't gone so well. Mystique seemed to have firmly cemented her leadership, but Magneto still had his own team. Scott had wasted no time in outing Mystique as impersonating Xavier, which had only furthered the divisions.

Wolverine, and Storm had both split off groups of Xmen for safety reasons after the Institute had been destroyed. Both they, and Beast had also gotten invitations into the Justice League. This had been further complicated by SHIELD offering Wolverine a consulting position, and both the US, and Canadian Armies hoping for him to reactivate his commission. Both Juggernaut, and Xavier were both on notice from the Army that they might be obligated for service reactivation in the event of another invasion. Naturally the notices made note that such reactivation would come with accompanying promotions of course.

Magneto had been somewhere between furious, and disgusted at the attempt. Right now though the Xmen didn't know where they stood. Between the Sentinel Incident in New York, and the Invasion by Anubis Xavier had only been free for so long. Not long enough to prevent the further fracturing especially given Constantinos had split the population of the institute up.

Storm's nephew believed that Xmen would potentially best suited by joining up with the Justice League, Xavier wasn't so keen on that. Especially with there being discussion of not simply a mutant registration action, which had much wider support relatively speaking, but a superhuman or superpowers registration act possibly being written by the US Congress.

-scene break-

The Tauri drydock was crawling with a lot more security personnel than normal, "Still say we should have named it something else." Grumbled O'neill as he looked around the one good thing about invasions was the boost to the military. Space Command was at least happy about the success of missiles. It took dozens of naquadah enhanced nukes in rapid succession to kill a Ha'tak, but it had worked. So even now they were talking about putting them in orbit over this planet too.

"Your suggestions would not have fit the set pattern Jack." Stated Daniel, "The Navy is harping on about tradition, and thats the way it normally is."

The Jaffa picked up on the subtle cues of the teams beginning what were most likely final checks, after all this was hardly the first ship launch he'd been to. "I believe the launch will commence momentarily." Stated Teal'c.

A few minutes later the facility's public announcement system crackled to life. The speakers conveyed the voice of General Hammond. Officially, until the Joint Chiefs could make up their mind, Stargate Command's seat of power was still the Cheyenne Mountain complex back on Earth. Of course like all members of the SGC according to new security protocols the staff, including the General, were frequently being shifted between the primary offworld complexes.

What made the Illiad, the latest of the Daedalus-class ships, different from the other ships was not particularly drastic mechanically. There were a small series of slight modifications slight tweaks, but in truth there weren't any major design shifts. The last major shift had been in about the matter of integrating the data gathered about shields from captured Ha'tak. This had been done on the second flight from the get go. This second flight was the Oddessy, and now the Illiad.

No what the Illiad important, were the complement of British officers, particularly the engineers and pilots stationed aboard the ship. The idea behind this idea was to begin training British personnel, as part of an exchange. The US would be subsidizing the construction of a 304 class ship for the British. That news had come as a bit more of a surprise but did make sense because of the newly discovered handful of ancient facilities in Southern England.

There was already talk about how the new budget wouldn't really be going to the new Daedalus-class shipbuilding program, or rather a lot less than what had been expected to have been. Congress had prioritized search and seizure on Ha'tak class ships, yes, but the new Joint USAF USN ship research program was being given the bulk of the focus. The consensus was that the Daedalus-class couldn't mount a big enough, home built, reactor to power dedicated anti ship guns, nor could it carry enough fighters to reasonably threaten a Goa'uld ship of the line.

The new idea was to build a significantly larger test hull, and at the same time try and learn as much from Ha'tak guns, as well as the crashed 'ancient dreadnought' as possible in order to hopefully develop a counter that didn't involve throwing dozens of naquadah enhanced nukes at the problem. There were rumors that even so the Navy was bringing in guys from the SSGN program just in case though.

-scene break-

He stared from the observation post on the top floor, Saki waited for the System Lord to finish his watching of the city's horizon. Raiden slowly turned to face the waiting leader of the foot ninja. "Such a bother all this has been Saki." The Shredder inclined his head in agreement. "Talpa's attempts too have been thwarted to this point. by certain mortal groups, at the moment," His frown deepened. Talpa's progress was not particularly concerning. It was true the slowed progress has certainly annoyed him, but for the moment there was little he could do but to trust Talpa's planning, "We will allow Talpa to proceed however since the Umtrom have since been dispatched and with Aoshi otherwise occupied, it is your forces I will call upon to deal with this problem."

The Shredder nodded, he could not fathom as to what Aoshi could possible be involved in that could tie down his entire available elements. It hardly mattered the situation on Earth was dire enough. "Will Talpa expect further confrontation with the ronin then?" As far he was aware during recent conflicts those ruffled feather had been smoothed.

"I do not think so," The system lord responded, "for now things have relaxed. Talpa believes another method would be practical in bringing the Ronin into alignment, and that such methods would be more in line with Japan's well being." Raiden's disinterest in the matter was readily clear.

He realized that he had the opportunity to speak up, "Regarding the turtles then?" Saki asked delicately broaching the subject.

"What of them?" He asked, personally he cared little. Karai seemed fond of the little creatures, and the Shredder annoyed, but he had not seen enough of them to comment or give any full opinion, "What have they done now?"

Oruki Saki cleared his throat, and that was where the problem lay, "Nothing as of yet. Merely, Raiden-sama that there have been certainly developments. Energy readings, and vehicles clearly based on Umtrom technology, which given-"  
"To the point Saki," Raiden barked a tinge impatience reflecting his annoyance at how things had played out over the last month in the wake of the fight both over the Earth, and on its surface. "make it." He ordered, "What of these devices, have they been used to assault your positions, endanger your holdings and vassals perhaps?" If they had then this was a much simpler affair.

They hadn't, not his exactly, "Stockman recently took a position with OsCorp, and his latest criminal was meddled in by one of these devices." Raiden's lips curled in disgust at the mention, "I have yet to have been told of direct action against the foot, but-"  
"Then do nothing," Raiden growled, he cared nothing for OsCorp, "You have not been provoked, and I will not sanction needless stirring of conflict. The mortals are already abuzz because of Anubis's attack," which still made no sense, or rather less sense than it should, because of course ancient technology was a strong motivator. Still the Tauri were already clamoring about, both over this 'mutant hysteria' that seemed to grip them, and again with the aliens issue.

He nodded, grudgingly, perhaps Talpa was being allowed to continue because they just assumed it was some normal occurrence. Certainly humans seemed to accept the occasional rampage by the likes of the Joker, and outside of his initial attempt Talpa was considerably more discrete. "As you say, my lord."

-Chapter Conclusion-

Helltanz's Notes:


	32. Chapter 32 Aftermath II

Chapter 32

Lightning Fervor

Helltanz's Notes:

-Chapter begin-

Sokar could have been in a better mood, but the truth was Anubis's invasion of earth had ended well enough for his agenda. That one of his agents had been captured was no concern of his, as his plans were going well. There were some minor struggles amongst the goa'uld, even claims that Ra would be returning but Sokar doubted those claims. It was possible Ra was alive, but if he was so what. Ra's fleet might have been huge, but even assuming he allied with Heru'ur, and Cronus what of it. He, Sokar was already looking forward.

Azrael nodded beside him, clad in the latest of Sokar's personal armor designs. Azrael had seen the implementation of his master's counter to those abominations that Anubis called the kull warriors. It had been a fairly simple improvement heavy plasma rifles, thicker armor, and well armies of cloned unas. It was the latter which Sokar particularly favored, the goa'uld had abandoned the Unas in favor of humans because it took too long to replace lost numbers. That was no longer an issue.

It was the wake of Anubis's defeat though that opened the path. Several of the celtic system lords had been weakened during the conflict, both by internal fighting, and Anubis and his lackeys. It was a prime opportunity, even as the System Lords were poised to convene yet again.

A pale hand reached across the black vitreous enamel of the console to activate the holographic display. Now was the time. There was a weakness plaguinig the system lords. There was prey, there were fertile lands easily able to be seized. There was the opportunity to bring so much into the fire of the old gods.

The holographic map displayed the galaxy as he understood it from his latest intelligent briefings. The system lords had grown week, and decadent since the great war he had waged against Ra. That much was readily apparent. It did not surprise him, and it would be something he would be working to fix. Heru'ur chose to style himself as the Avenger, but Sokar preferred the trappings of the Scourge. A punisher straight from the bowel's of the underworld sent to torment the wretched, it was vastly more appropriate.

Sokar eyed the star chart studiously as it zoomed in, focusing on the sector. Consolidating the weakened goa'uld domains was an ideal move.

His fleets were already prepared. The warships loaded with thousands and thousands of mobile armors. It was true that majority of his ground troops were Jaffa, there were limits to cloning after all. Not that it mattered the The sixty division equivalents of Unas that he had massed for the assault on the collection of celtic system lords would take Manaan, and Camulus's weakened borders by storm. It was the slaughter he was looking forward to. "I trust the force is prepared?"

"Baal," His most trusted lieutenant began, "Is believed to be too busy consolidating his forces to contest an assault."

Sokar ground his teeth in annoyance. Baal allegedly didn't wish to risk a further open confrontation with the rest of the system lords. At least not before he could insure his mastery over Anubis's manufacturing bases. "Then we will launch the offensive on schedule," so long as the coming weeks did not bring any new developments. He did not expect them to, Heru'ur and Cronus were likely to veto Shiva's readmission to the System Lords.

-scene break-

Daniel's abrupt temporary reassignment immediately after the Illiad's launch hadn't gone well. It couldn't be helped though Thor's arrival with his attendant Asgard Battlefleet had disturbed a sizable portion of the UN. SHIELD was still busy fretting over aliens, and superheroes as it was. Of course Daniel's abrupt reassignment had very little to do with that.

In fact it ahd more to do with the fact that Daniel was Earth's foremost expert on the ancient aliens, and now the whole world knew it. Naturally it meant congress wanted him to find, for the United States, the largest known cache of available, ancient technology. It was a project that had been hastily thrown together after the invasion to try and find the lost city of Atlantis. The way congress figured it was that while it was time to start letting the US's allies into the program the US needed to control as much ancient technology as absolutely possible. It was precisely that attitude that was causing problems with a number of European allies, especially in the face of existing political realities.

Still here he was pouring over a bunch of ancient records. Jack cleared his throat, "Hows it going Danny?"

"Well the data we've salvaged from Anubis's computers, and our own data collection seem to agree that Atlantis is capable of being moved," Congress was going to love to hear that, especially with the way the Alaskan senator, and one of the Texan congressmen talking about formally adding planets to the union. There was still no idea how that would work exactly in a legal context. The fact remained that if they could move the city to an already establish US offworld site that would be an amazing development as far as Congress was concerned, "but the bad news is we think," Daniel said gesturing to his handful of assistants, the other lesser experts in the field, around the room, "its probably in another galaxy, which means an eight chevron dial code."

Jack nodded, "Well we'd know if the Asgard knew where it was, they've got nothing so we can safely say its not in their galaxy."

"Yeah we figured that," Daniel agreed, "So whats the news from the outside?" Post invasion the US had gone to an increasingly heightened state of alert, this was especially true as the information about the orbital nuclear defense grid was dissimenated to the general public. It meant that the research facility, which was being guarded by a mish mash of SGC airmen, and NID and SHIELD agents. The person in charge was an older man in a suit from the NID named Percy, but that wasn't a whole lot to go on.

Jack tilted his head and gave him a look, "Its a mess," That was the easiest truth of the situation, but it really did fail to address just how much of a mess this was. "At first there were talks of an international oversight organization," France's idea, and it had gotten annhilated out of hand when Yu had shown up to the meeting in full regalia claiming no mortal princinling would so foolishly limit his respectful duties to law and throne. Or something Jack wasn't overly fluent in Chinese. "Then Yu showed up, and everyone got an earful, so right now we're just back to the Security Council," Or the permanent members at least "whining at one another." Whining at each while the US was just starting to pick up the pieces in the wake of the near complete loss of the Nimitz carrier battlegroup, of which the Louisville had survived to rescue survivors. "Sokar is supposed to be showing up next week it seems he found out we had a run in with one of Cyttorak's inventions, and he's all interested and stuff."

-scene break-

Percy White arrived by a NID Cadmus division helicopter. He had one purpose for being here, before he got back on it to fly out. That purpose was talking about the possibility of a Cadmus office in the city. Recent events had shown that government sponsored teams of metahumans had the potential to perform just as well as the Justice League, and the Intelligence Subcommitee was very pleased.

The problem with this was Luthor's Krypton Initiative. Luthor himself had already proven far too valuable to discard especially in the wake of just how problematic the Justice League could prove to be. "Now we are sure Alva senior has a way of contacting the local super hero." the local operative was telling hi  
"You mean the metahuman Static Shock." It wasn't a question, Static had proved useful in support of operations by the Cadmus created metahuman team. There was an affirmative in response, "Well we'll see if thats true." It most like was, evidence seemed to be mounting that Alva senior was increasingly expanding research projects which later were being used by the metahuman.

The rumor was Alva for whatever reason was backing Static as Dakota's version of the flash, except with more fancy gadgets. Of course there was already what was being called a proto Justice League, just with younger members being formed. The local agent flipped through the files, "We're expecting that 'Static's club' is going to comprise at least one mutant, maybe two."

"Is that going to be a problem?" The senior NID agent inquired, there was still a lot complaints being brought up primarily from various members of congress, which ran the risk of national sanction on top of the existing state level sanction for Static. It also ran the risk of pushing the metahuman further into the Justice League's influence. That wasn't acceptable, "Then tell Alva we want to meet with the local hero." Cadmus had originally wanted to send in one of the Ultimen, but NID upper management had nixed that idea believing it a better idea to put a more official government face on this whole thing, especially in the wake of Anubis's invasion.

They didn't need to wait long, Alva had pressed his early warning button the minute the government chopper had showed up. "So uh whats up guys, er I mean,"

"Its fine." Percy waved him off, "My name is Percy White," He half expected a crack from the teenager but none game, "I work for the US government."

Static nodded, "Yeah I noticed, I was kind of expecting my man Long Shadow to come by," He commented, "So whats up?" He glanced over at Gear who was flicking his hand at him, "Whats up?"

"Somebody is pinging some kind of electromagnetic system contact, sensors I mean," His friend stated, "Its probably nothing. I think it might just be Elijah,"

Percy did a good impression of not looking surpised, "Or it could be Intergang, or maybe its the League," He affected a nonchalant expression, "Thats why I'm, why we're here the whole world has so many organizations exist."  
"So your here on a recruitment trip,"

The NID man smiled, "Not at all son, I'm just here to make sure your aware of all the employment options that are available. After all Clark Kent gets to take of his glasses and be Superman, why shouldn't you get the same option?"

-scene break-

Diagon alley in London was a mess, at first everyone had thought that maybe it'd been some kind of new attack by Voldemort, or maybe a screw up by the Department of Mysteries. The idea that Voldemort had been responsible had a lot of support initially because there were a number of purebloods who didn't like goblins.

Then the dementors started dying, in droves leaving massive swathes of black across the land. Dragons roared in pain and started nested trying anything. Then wizards started developing mild symptoms. "Pomfrey says its some kind of magical disturbance, we're getting reports world wide, America seems to have dodged it for the most part." Dumbledore announced, "but I think some of thus knew that." Even the headmaster was showing symptoms, more than most wizards they knew

Moody shifted a bit, "Yeah, I might have an idea on why that is." He admitted, the mana potions he'd brought from the monastery had helped a little. "Its foreign magic, probably a god or maybe a demon. I know it can't be an Aedra or Daedra, as for America I think there is an explanation for that too." He flicked his wand, it took a little more focus, and a little more magic than he wanted to admit, "its called the Heart of Kandrakhar, its an artifact."

"Do you think it could fix this?" Someone asked, another member of the order clambered up stumbling and knocking his chair over as he asked whether it was responsible for this whole calamity.

Mad eye shook his head, "I can't say one way or another," For whatever their reasons the Aedra never discussed the heart, but it was clear they disliked it. "But I know if the yank's ministry find out they might do something that puts us all in trouble." Then again their own ministry was just as likely to do something stupid like that. "I don't know much about the Heart," He admitted quietely. There was a shot and crackle from the fire, and then Snape went shooting out from the fire place.

"Severus," Dumbledore went scrambling one way as a couple of the others went the opposite as people stumbled around. "Oh dear boy what were you thinking," Then again it had to be important the floo system might have only been partially stable but thus far there had been a rash of apparation accidents where dozens, and dozens of people had gone and gotten themselves splinched. Most of the accidents hadn't been immediately serious but it'd gotten worse as the day had gone on.

Hermione walked into the living room, "I think the Justice League is also suffering from whatever the effects as well, and well," Snape grunted something, and was helped into a chair after it had been turned right side up.

"The Dark Lord wants to talk, he's spent the whole evening with Mulciber and Rosier he's in agony," Snape grunted, "whatever it is is hitting him especially hard. He wants to fix all of this" The potions master took a sip of tea from the cup offered from one of the other members before continuing."Rosier figures something woke up, Mulciber thinks its possibly the opposite."

Dumbledore turned, "Hermione try and speak with the British members of the Justice League, Alastor extend your connection," He paused his face fixed in an exasperated expression, "and someone get a hold of Sirius tell him to look at things over there. Now I think Severus you should go back and ask them what they have in mind,"

-scene break-

This was one of the few things he hadn't expected, this disaster had torn through the smattering of magical defenses. Then the warnings had started coming in, and then members had started dropping. Then the princess had come running into the command center about Hermes's visit. That certainly explained why there was a gaping whole in the magical defenses of the watchtower.

"Scan complete," The computer chimed.

He looked through his things. Nothing, absolutely nothing there hadn't even been an energy surge, which meant Hermes was gone.

"We didn't find anything?" Flash asked, "Figures, so what about that Cadmus emergency scramble?" The fastest man alive inquired, "Do we have any leads on that?" He really felt that he should have been back down in Central City, this was just the sort of event that ran the risk of potentially leaving his city undefended..

Batman crossed his arms, "As it stands with the bulk of our magical experts disabled we have no way of determining the cause, or confirming Diana's information." He announced to the other members of the league, "However it is very possible that the information brought to us is accurate, and if such is the case we may be looking at a potential invasion threat from the realm of Erebus."

"Thats the reason for opening up the armory and distributing all those Nth metal weapons then I'm assuming?" Superman questioned.

A nod, "Correct, an assault by Faust in the Annhilator armor means magic, or magic disruption may be our only shot." It was also why he'd stopped Dianna from leaving with Hawkgirl so abruptly, "As it stands we need to be ready." The in the event Themiscra fell left unsaid.

"Well thats why you gave me the Nth metal bullets of course," Vigilante remarked, loading a lever action rifle, "It won't be a problem, John is rounding up the rest of the team now."

Batman gave a grunt, "Good we'll need the strike team ready it already looks like the Amazonians are fighting a faltering defensive action."

"Do you think thats wise I mean the Amazons got pretty mad the last time."  
"The whole world is in danger," Batman snapped angrily. "now whats this about contact at our English Branch reporting contact with a bunch of magic users?" He said abruptly changing subjects.

As it stood the news from England sounded like there might be a secondary problem some kind magical artifact somewhere in America. The league knew that they would definitely have to look into it, but that would mean after Zatana and Stranger were up and about, which meant after they took Faust out. "And there isn't really much more they know about this Heart of Kandrakhar, and they didn't know anything about Faust or the Amazons either."

"John whats your status?" Batman inquired ove the internal comms.

The Green Lantern sounded annoyed, "Look I'm not sure if this is a good idea bringing Kara, and Superman along, and another Green Lantern as apart of the team. Its going to run the risk of dangerously lowering our defenses in the event of a major attack."

-scene break-

Will was working on her third soda, she'd actually considered trying coffee, and still the drain hadn't gone away. It didn't make sense at all. The weeks after the invasion hadn't been that bad, Phobos had even laid off for a bit. He'd sent Cedric to try and negotiate, but that hadn't gone well at all.

There was a rumbling hiss, "I would wish you a g ood morning Little One." Sithis greeted pressing open the door. The disturbance had no effect on him, though the System Lords would know about Hermes showing up in orbit, eventually. Not that such things mattered.

The keeper of the Heart of Kandrakar threw one of the pillows that had been besider here at him. "Don't you know how to knock? What if my mom catches you in here." Sithis raised an eyebrow, it was an odd concern. "Oh right you're a God. What should you care if a mortal-"  
He held a hand up to silence the increasingly irrational tirade. "Your mother isn't present in the domicile." He murmured quietely, at this she went quiet for a moment, just long enough for him to begin to address his next matter.

"What did you do to my mom?" Will demanded suspiciously leaping off the side of her bed only to start to stumble.

A hand struck out catching a shoulder, "I believe she went to go on an errand, I did nothing at all to your mother." He had no need to, such was beneath him, "your fellow guardians did call, while you were sleeping," That was funny because Will didn't remember sleeping any, she shrugged his hand off.

"What?"

He waved away the question. He didn't seem annoyed, but stepped aside as the other Guardians came rushing into her room. "Will we have come to rescue you!" Hay Lin shouted leading the charge into the room

"By all means." The Patron of the Brotherhood gestured welcoming them in with a sardonic tone. The glares meant nothing to him, "Still that does mean that you are all here, good, Phobos," He ordered roughly.

The jumped to attention and Will fumbled with the Heart as the prince appeared, he stepped towards the free chair and took it without asking. That and the fact Phobos seemed immune to the fatigue that was effecting her, and to a lesser extent the other guardians annoyed her. "I am here," He answered looking away from Sithis.

"I know that after the invasion you were finally able to speak with Kandrakhar's council at last." There was an annoyance in his voice, "But I think that is a matter for another night I think, another time. The disturbance which wracks you now while it did not while it was going on it a result of the balance." He flicked the pink glowing gem, it glowed a little brighter humming at the contact with the Daedra's fingers, "You bear the Heart of Kandrakhar. What Hades did to try and help oppose Cronus in the end only entrenched him further on this world." Hades had chosen never to leave after he'd been betrayed, and his holdings destroyed. He'd even been imprisoned here in a magical approximation of Cronus's prison on Earth. It didn't matter. "His magic is bound has been bound deeply with your world, and though he is not its heart, it still is important for the balance. From a mortal's view his magic is ancient, and it has been an important part of the balance that when its flow is suddenly altered those who interact most frequently with the natural magic of the world react adversely to that."

The guardian of Earth looked at him, "You mean those tremors that were going through the earth earlier." Cornelia remarked.

"That would be how you would perceive it," Sithis responded, "Your reaction would be stronger than others with water's reaction being weaker." It was here his real agenda came into play, the Guardians were the linchpin to insuring the weakening of Kandrakhar, "Holding the Heart of Kandrakhar so close means that such shifts would not be noticeable for you, for your body regulates and cycles those energies for the surrounding area muting the disruption for all those around you."

Taranne got it first, "But when everything snapped back to normal she had to deal with that extra surge of magic flowing right?" Phobos grunted, that was the right idea though that was effectively the situation.

"It is precisely why I have brought Phobos."

The boyish prince needed no further prompting, "With this new understanding of how magic interacts with the heart of a world, you must return my sister to me, and to Meridian. It would allow me to guarantee her well being against Nerissa's forces," That was about as far as he got before being interupted

"HE!" Cornelia yelled, there was pulse of anger driven magic through the ground, "can't have Ellyon." She snarled. "I'm not letting that tyrant take my friend. We can deal with that bitch ourselves we don't need his help"

Sithis eyed her, "Now you know how I feel when you throw a tantrum," He remarked quietly to Phobos, "It is your responsibility to defend Earth," He said addressing them, "it needs to be consider what is best for this planet, and your other charges."

"The Council said we had to make sure Ellyon was safe."

"And she will be." Phobos hissed.

-scene break-

The NID had reported the 'theft' of the magical armor fairly quickly. A lot of people at the SGC hadn't taken magic real well. The formation of the Justice League several years back hadn't really dealt with the issue of magic, not when most the threats dealt with were just alien invasions. Of course it was the precise concern that had everyone on alert after the Annhilator's theft.

"Giant magic robots," One of the men muttered disparagingly, "Bet its just some weird offshoot of Goa'uld technology." The airman continued on off to the side in a quieter tone.

The thing was that there was no evidence to that one way or another. Still the president was going on making plenty of speeches assuring the population, or trying to, that everything possible was being done for the security of the planet. Considering they'd ended up loosing an entire battlegroup, and then there had been the smattering of 'demon attacks' that the Justice League hadn't been able to prevent from reaching Europe everything possible wasn't enough. It, the loss of the Nimitz, was enough to give the Navy a massive boost in political capital, but that was another matter.

Technically the Annhilator running rampant wasn't any of the SGC's concern, not under the new rules anyway. It was solely the attention of the NID, and SHIELD it would really depend on who got to it first. It wasn't like you could hide a massive walking suit of armor just anywhere after all.

"Where are we with Fleet, and defense expansion?" Defending against gliders wasn't an issue conventional fighters could deal with that, albeit with losses. It was the new developments they might have to worry more about down the road. All reports seemed to indicate that Heru'ur's new strike fighters had more armor on them an Abrams.

There was some shuffling, and one of the new Program Officers looked up, the idea had been to expand planetary defense into a new joint service defense command. Particularly it involved training up personnel from both the Navy and the Air Force, and giving the new command unprecedented emergency command rights with regards to air units. "At present shipyard, and training cadre expansion has priority." More shuffling of papers and then the man looked back up, "There also is the test bed programs that are being considered." Originally the Navy had wanted to just build carriers in space, but had also wanted to dump some of their submarines people into the program to be rid of them, now with the loss of the carrier group they were far more interested in getting involved.

"The Fleet is currently dramatically," the naval officer added, "Under equipped for planetary defense. We've got air crews drilling on all available space based fighters as it is, and we just don't have enough." He had a point the Death Gliders, the 301, and to a lesser extent the 302 were rapidly approaching obsolete just because of rapid paradigm shift in galactic armaments. "We need either directed, or kinetic energy weapons, and heavier missiles for all of our craft."

There was a nod, "He's a point General," one of the fighter mafia men pointed out, "Our Eagles don't break twenty tons, mobile armors are over a hundred tons easy, and mount shields, and armor. Our AMRAAMs just aren't designed for knocking something like that down in atmosphere much less in space."

"So we're basically looking at having to tell congress we need more money to design our fighters air to air weapons,"

... oh yeah that would be fun, O'neill thought.

-Chapter Conclusion -

Helltanz's Notes:


	33. Chapter 33 Steps Forward I

Chapter 33

Lightning Fervor

Helltanz's Notes:

-Chapter begin-

The whole thing about Hermione going to talk to the Justice League had really brought the Order of the Pheonix further out of its depth in a way. It also further convinced Dumbledore that they really did need to do something more about what all was going on both with regards to insuring the prophecy, and looking at the wider world.

In the wake of the disturbance Voldemort was backpedalling as it was. There could be no denying it now though for all the ministry's crowing they had no part in it. It was old magic, foreign magic, and foreign wizards. "With Voldemort retreating and reinforcing his holdings we must consider now to be the time we must gather our strength." the headmaster urged, and in truth it was sensible advice.

More now than ever did Bill Weasley look tired, exhausted by recent months. After Anubis's invasion, which wizards could not ignore everyone had scrambled for answers to the sides involved. Every petty practitioner of divination had gone mad it had seemed in the aftermath. Dumbledore had doubled efforts to keep Utgard's keep hidden and safe from those who didn't know of it. Anubis had invaded Earth, and now experts on ancient Egypt were in great demand in the wizarding world. Demands were made especially by the ministry, and Gringotts too.

Mad Eye looked tired too, he'd warned that all of this was just the beginning. This chaos was just the precursor, he had been saying. Alastor was the 'order's secret weapon' in many ways as far as they knew he was the only one that could be depended on for accurate up to date, so to speak, information about the Aedra and Daedra. Together the two wizards were forming the basis of the Order's new research group that was being assembled.

"So I've compiled pretty much everything," Hermione announced, flipping through here scrapbook of newspaper clippings and notes, "The armor was apparently created by Hephaestus," And it was about then a number of people started dozing, because a lot of the technical details and historical anecdotes really were boring. "... So the Justice League seems to have retrieved the armor from Ares, but it was later lost, and then it showed, and now its missing again."

There some nods, but there was also some problems. Rather simply put the Justice League was rather obviously dominated by a distinctly American, and non magical, leadership. "Well that is rather interesting," Dumbledore remarked, "We should I think keep a watchful eye out for the artifact it would be very troublesome if Voldemort were able to seize control of it." He sighed looking, "Well I see Sirius is absentee again, still with Voldemort on the backpedal, we should certainly consider reaching out across the pond as it were. If we are to continue to take steps to minimize the success of the Death Eaters until we can set a final conclusion we will need to begin trying to better understand the situation at large."

Dancing around the issue a bit, but everyone knew that Moody openly refused to even consider looking for summoning rituals to unleash Sithis into the mortal world, defeating Voldemort or not. So naturally the next best idea was to go and find someone affiliated to ask for them.

Bill looked up, "I've got an expedition to the Sinai already," He rubbed his eyes, "on the books I think it might be a lead." Naturally Hermione was the first one to volunteer to go investigate possible alien ruins.

-scene break-

Luthor sat back still reading, work at Cadmus was both blessing and curse. In a way it had both nurtured and broken him of his grudge against superman. It was paradoxical like that, it was interesting. There was however one thing he didn't like, getting told what to do, much less by a bunch of men in cheap government suits. Still listening to them prattle on had given him an insight into just what was out there. Particularly about Captain Atom's report that had managed to get to Stargate command.

General Jones, and Lieutenant Wallace glanced at Luthor who was still peering down at the report that had had his attention. The report had occupied the genius's attention for most the meeting, "Luthor," Jones called out gruffly, "you still with us?" The white haired man asked, "you fixed the Ultimen of that degeneration thing yet." The aged world war II veteran asked, for about the dozenth time in the past week, "Sooner we have to stop replacing them,"  
"Yes general I have the fixed the problem," Luthor grimaced. He really would have expected the old man, who was really only walking around in his normal form thanks expressly to Cadmus's super science, to be more concerned about the possibility of a Nazi colony somewhere out there in space, but he supposed it couldn't be helped. "The issue of the genetic degradation has been fixed," And the fix had been implemented on his pet project, codenamed Krypton.

Doctor Strange cleared his throat, "Yes the Ultimen are fine," He commented, a bit disdainfully, "There should be no further problems." This was primarily an in house meeting. Cadmus division members only, and primarily only their high ranking members and experts were here.

"So you say doctor," Waller remarked testily, "Percy thinks he might have in regarding the metahuman Static Shock, probably not a recruit, but if he does form a team then we have a potential ally to help with the midwest." The director paused, "While this is far from an ideal solution, for the moment it is potentially invaluable to our agenda." The message was rather clear don't fuck this up.

Strange ground his teeth a bit, "And what about the batman?" He demanded, "Sooner or later Wayne is going to be an issue."

"Wayne enterprise has a genius kryptonian that they snatched from Cadmus," Luthor admitted, Luthor never said us, when described the loss of Galatea, "It thus far hasn't been a problem," He conceded. There was a reason Emil Hamilton wasn't welcome during these debates, they were lucky so far that he hadn't run off half cocked to Gotham City and caused a scene, "We still have only limited evidence on the motivations of Alien Gods after all."

The psychiatrist continued to grind his teeth, "Wayne has arsenal, and is a member of the Justice League, and has in roads with SHIELD." The man continued on, "Couple that with his new wards and we are looking at possible."

"A dynasty?" Waller interrupted, "Funnily enough I can see Bruce Wayne putting a crown on, but he's not after a throne, besides the Director wants us to focus more on the Chinese Metahuman team."

There was a collective groan from the bulk of the assembled. It was one thing having to listen through domestic reports, but congress was growing increasingly worried about other national metahuman teams. As it happened they were saved by the bell. Or as the case was an emergency space contact warning siren. Something was on an approach to Earth.

"Thanagarian?" Waller double checked, "Mobilize the Ultimen, this might be an attempt at round two, with the same opening move," She stated, the ship was Gordanian, at least according to the data from the captured Thanagarian data after the invasion. Well this time they would be ready. As it was it looked like the ship was headed for a crash course on the west coast.

-scene break-

The long awaited meeting of the System lord. Cronus had made more gains than expected, but at the same time he'd also made his share of mistakes. The reports were already filtering in to the other system lords. Zeus was back, and he and Ares, who had resurfaced as well despite attempts were up to something.

Kali and Bastet were focusing on a series of defense increases just in case Cronsus did decide he was going to try and pull something. It didn't help of course that there was a rumor that they may or may not have been aiding Zeus in someway. These were rumors were further spread by alleged reports that elite soldiers masquerading as Tauri special forces had attacked from ships marked with the emblems of Nirti.

A clear example of a false flag operation by some ambitious Goa'uld. After all it was well known that the Tauri did not issue plasma weapons. Cronus had made his opinion that such deceptions were weak, and easily seen through, even as Kali and Bastet claimed their innocence in the matter.

Raiden didn't know what to think of such accusations. It had become readily clear in the months after Anubis fall that something had gone on. These reports of attacks seemed to match up with limited intelligence regarding attacks on Anubis's own troops who had been involved in that region of space. Still for all the bickering that marred the gathering it was true that some progress had been made. An agreement to requisition sample of anti kull warrior technology from the Tauri, according to the established rules of the System Lords had already been signed. Yu had promised to dispatch his prime minister to deliver the missive to the Tauri upon conclusion so the technology could be gathered and disseminated amongst the system lords per their laws.

Naturally the System Lords would each be making their own notifications to the Tauri about the technology as well. Heru'ur had affirmed as such as soon as Yu had presented his intention.

Baal's request to admission into the High Council had been neatly vetoed. No doubt Baal would attempt to bring the matter to a general vote later in the coming year after he had better consolidated his position. Cronus had also furiously denied Kali's appeal to readmit Shiva into the System Lords. Thus for the moment their numbers were sitting at their current numbers with no immediate plan for changes.

Yu rose from his chair, "It the consensus of the High Council," He announced, quieting the entire body, "Per entreatment by the Asgard that the crimes of Anubis merit the creation of an exclusionary zone around the Tauri and other protected planets. Only those forces who marshal in the name of the law will be permitted within this domain and that any other shall be considered to be rogues and villains, and subject to the justice of both the System Lords, and the Asgard. Those who would violate this may be freely hunted without repercussion, and may do so without mercy."

Baal nodded, he had originally feared that he would be relieved of his claim to Dakara, which both Sokar, Heru'ur, and Cronus had all made claims on. No doubt the three members of the high council simply could not agree to whom the world should pass too at the present. It was unlikely that they would reach a consensus any time soon.

-scene break-

Robin closed the protective lens, shutting the projector off. Bruce was busy with a dozen other things, but the League had at least made an appearance. The main thing they were concerned about was the spy they had caught and the alleged 'Martian' prisoners being held. It meant that he more or less was on his own.

Still he had the approval... the approval to form his own team. His team, he thought overlooking the bay. He was clear of Gotham too now, that was on the other side of the country. The league was finally had finally approved the formation of a team of young super heroes. He turned to his new teammates, "I have purchased the ownership of the island in the bay, we'll build our headquarters there," It was also where the alien space ship had crashed, which could be a problem. Or rather would be a problem if the military or Cadmus, or SHIELD tried to contest their hold.

Red Tornado came down to greet the younger heroes, "We have established our position a team of League Engineers," Wayne Industries Engineers really, "have landed and already have a plan to clear away the debris."

"Understood," Robin acknowledged to the android... already his computer was chirping about how Godfrey was already railing on about aliens attack, and battles on Earth. It was PR nightmare, the pundit never let an opportunity to complain about aliens on earth get by him. It was also always aliens, which might have been a good thing. The newscaster certainly didn't care about humans with superpowers, even mutants or such.

Red Tornado seemed to be getting the same reports, "Godfrey will not allow this opportunity to pass him by, and we still have limited information about the Gordanians on whether this will be the end of it." He added. "The League Council will convene at the earliest opportunity to address the matter, until then we must consider avoiding a confrontation with army elements."

"I don't think the army is going to be the problem,"  
Tornado paused as his head moved slightly, "It would seem that General Ross has already mobilized forces enroute, it would further seem that indeed the air force may be our initial point of contact." That had the potential to be a problem, negotiations with the National Guard would have probably been a whole lot easier. "He appears to want to speak to the League Representative in charge."

General Thadeus Ross was a part of the Air Force. In fact according to plans he was on a short list to begin transfer to either command of a terrestrial 302 Wing Base, or possibly even a position to a key offworld Air Force Base. He'd only recently been briefed on these potential openings as well.

He hadn't even given the likes of the Gordanians a second thought since the Thanagarian invasion, but the prospect of the scientific knowledge gained by getting the US a downed alien ship. All they'd need to do was get the League to back off, and seal the hull breaches, they might even be able to make it fly again.

-scene break-

His journey to Tokyo had not been planned with the thought of him to be involved in this kind of issue, "Not that I am questioning you master, but is this such a wise idea?" inquired the Shredder.

Approximately four stories below the system lord and the leader of the foot ninja, Karai and Kayura were engaging five youths in magical Samurai armor. The shredder's adopted daughter took the initiative her two katanas emitting burst of light. This abrupt counter attack caused them, the five Ronin, to scatter.

Raiden had hardly expect such a lax display from Talpa, but at the same time presented the rare opportunity to witness the constant thorns in Talpa's side in action. It was hardly an amusing show. The ronin drove forward focusing nearly entirely on raw power, and surely should not have been a match for Talpa's retainers. "Tell them we are leaving I have other matters to attend to. The Ronin are to be left alive." This issue was Talpa's responsibility, sending the Shredder into the fray risked discord amongst the harmonious balance of his domain.

It was the abrupt withdrawal of their foes that left the five armor bearers concerned with the situation. "So what just happened? Did we just get blown off?" Kento demanded looking around for their enemy.

"I think we should consult with John Stewart," His teammate stated looking around, they'd never had something like this happened. Talpa had always sent the warlords to waylay them if he felt the need to distract them, and this time there had been no sign of any of the warlords.

Japan had dodged in full conflict with Anubis's forces during the invasion. In fact the last set of invaders had been the Thanagarians nearly two years prior, which was more than most major countries could say. It had also lead to a bit more laxing of the guard, in part also due to Talpa relaxing his movements in response to the seemingly annual innudation of alien invaders. Talpa had even gone so far as to admit he considered external enemies to be a more pressing concern than the feuding between himself, and them.

Ryo produced the League issued communicator, which the team used primarily to speak with the Green Lantern John Stewart.

"Uh guys," the voice of the League member crackled a bit, "Kind of in a League Council meeting," John admitted over the line, before going on to admit that if they needed the help he could approve some reinforcements, potentially even Hal Jordan, or Gardner, two of the other two Green Lanterns from Earth.

"That was a bust," Ryo admitted after they finished the discussion over the comm. From the way the conversation had gone Batman had probably been glaring at the Green Lantern to get off the phone, metaphorically speaking.

Sage considered the situation objectively, "Talpa may not be the only problem we have to face now." It was highly possible that Talpa might have allies of his own, and that the other two figures who had been with him could be those allies, "I think tomorrow we need to look into everything that happened," Starting with their enemies's emblems, if nothing else who could hint at their powers.

– scene break-

It had taken Stargate Command nearly an hour to cordon off the site. Dealing with the Justice League had also been a problem, and in a surprise so had dealing with the local national guard units. Still in the end the main Gordanian ship had been fished out of the drink, hoisted up with anti gravity technology that had been salvaged from the Thanagarians, and moved further in land.

So here they were listening to the same old complaints, by the usual suspects. Kinsey had been trying to rally support for this, right now it just wasn't politically tenable, "I am telling you we must reveal the existence of the stargate. This latest disaster is a major breach of national security," He growled.

Jack, newly promoted to Brigadier General following Hammond's promotion as interim head of the Orbital Defense, sat back in his chair. Hammond's promotion had meant that he'd been formally relocated to Nevada, at least until a permanent Homeworld Defense command post could be established. There was already talk about simply repurposing stargate command for that, and moving the gate.

For now though everyone was here in DC, effectively twiddling their thumbs as Kinsey ranted. It wasn't like the man wasn't actually bringing up the occassional valid point, it just wasn't feasible. "Jack I understand the System Lords have dropped by."  
"Yes mister President, we received notorization from Yu of the new version of the protected planets treaty," Along with the formal requisition for their anti kull technology citing some weird goa'uld law. Thor had said it wasn't a big deal, so they'd notorized that they'd handed the technology to the Asgard who would disseminate it to the System Lords. Thor had said it was the best way to avoid political complications to the situation on the Earth end of things... O'neill doubted that.

The director of the NID looked up as if to say something, but the National Security Advisor beat him to speaking, "At present I think we should consider inviting NATO to assist in studying the Gordanian warship that was brought down in California,"

"It would certainly go a ways to getting the French off of our backs." At least it would for the time being, but given the present situation of the galaxy that would probably be for the best. "Also Thanagarian and Gordanian technology in fact might be just what we need on the issue of countering enemy air units,"

Another advisor nodded, "and if we invite them into a project with this it will give us breathing room with regards to press on with fleet construction." The loss of the Nimitz battlegroup nearly in full had allowed the clearance of a suitably massive naval bill related to spacce to pass through both the Senate and the House in record time. The relative success of the strategic services had also helped. So the quick passing of the bill had had two other upsides besidesa massive increase in funding, particularly towards R&D and shipbuilding, as the fast passage meant there had only been minimal pork spending slipped in and well the stimulation to the economy had created plenty of jobs both in construction and the defense sector. Then there came the bad news to hit stargate command, it was a navy bill the new ships were going to be under the Navy's command, as was a majority portion of the research budget granted under the bill.

"The new yards approved by the appropriations bill are already coming on line," Jumper announced, "the test bed ships are one thing, though with the new funding expansion we should be able to accelerate construction significantly." What that meant was that while they could churn out more ships, quickly they'd still be slowed because there were only so many yards.  
-scene break-

It had been hard to see Robin decide to strike off on his own, but Alfred had known that it had been for the best. There had already been some simmering jealousy between the superpowered resident, and young Tim Drake. Grayson had taken things better, having become Nightwing several years earlier, but even he had some problems with the present residence of Wayne Manor.

"Yoh Bruce." Greeted the police commissioner's daughter coming down the elevator that lead from the mansion proper. "Hey Alfred,"

The butler nodded, "Hello Barbara." The Wayne heir greeted the college student, and batgirl, as he continued to review the data. This new change established a precedent for the League, which benefitted his overall plan for the League. As it was the Justice League needed to have robust response capability, and having more permanent teams assigned to regions would increase League efficiency overall.

"So then Drake has his own team." She commented a hint of curiosity to her voice. "That leaves Gotham without a Robin," Barbara commented unnecessarily. The only response was a grunt of affirmation from Bruce. "So with Drake getting his own team I was wondering when I get to join the league?" she inquired.

Bruce tapped a key he had been expecting a confrontation like this, in fact most the league had. There was further discussion of creating under Nightwing as well, but a membership roster had yet to be developed. "The League Council has altered membership requirements for full membership, when you graduate college," He added, and then tapped another key highlighting regions on the map. "Robin's team is going to be the first of many, the League is going to expand." It was definitive fact. It was also very likely that everyone else would be trying to do the same.

"So thats why Speedy throwing his little temper tantrum on the Watchtower?" Green Arrow's sidekick like Supergirl was considered officially a junior member of the Justice League.

Under the new categories they wouldn't be eligible for full League Membership for sometime. "We're considering forming two younger teams in the near future," Bruce acknowledged, "Nightwing would be responsible for a central US based team, we're still evaluating potential team members."

"So the other team would be responsible for the East Coast?"

Batman nodded, in a singular gruff motion, "Or possibly on the Gulf of Mexico," This third junior team was in a way a political favor to Aquaman by giving one of his subordinates command of the team, either way it would probably end with Aqualad being in charge of a team somewhere in the Eastern US. "In any case the League reorganization is meant to allow us to better response to future crises."

"What about the new defense bill? I mean," Wayne Corp along with pretty much every other Mega Corporation in the United States was getting paid to start churning out construction projects for the US Defense, and then there were rearmament programs that were supposed to to better suit the national guard to defense during an alien invasion. Of course a lot of the latter was making sure new weapons, and vehicles were issued to the Guard units, and a lot of old guard vehicles, and weapons would be transferred to police armories in major cities.

"Wayne Industries, particularly our aerospace group is already working closely with SHIELD, and the US Armed forces."

-scene break-

So far there had been a lot of changes, and at the same time very little had changed in the day to day running of Stargate Command. The main change had been downsizing of Cheyenne mountain. Under the new orders the SGC was no longer intended to be used as combat or exploratory arm. The SGC's primary budget was now meant to be dedicated towards development of all offworld facilities, particularly offworld shipyards. As a part of this all anthropological research was being limited to worlds that had been contacted, and were considered minimal danger. It had been a pain to even get the scientists that much.

Jack leaned back in his desk, right now Hammond was over at Area 51 briefing NATO brass on the captured Gordanian ship. That had unsurprisingly caused the entire UN to flip tables, but then again a number of nations had done the same thing before. The most notable had been the Thanagarian invasion when every nation had for the most part ignored the UN and scrambled to gather up any available alien tech. "At least I don't have to deal with all the squabling over Naquadah, and the pieces in orbit," Jack remarked

Of course there had also been a serious outcry over the Anubis Invasion and the nukes in space, but that had been primarily NGOs talking as opposed to nations. People had seen the nuke grid, while an obvious violation of the 1967 Space treaty, that the US, and the other spacefaring countries, were withdrawing from anyway had been at least semi effective against alien capital ships en masse. The Naquadah issue was the other one, dominance of the gate and for the moment only FtL ships meant the US had sole access to the wonder material. Allegedly Russia was trying to back engineer a Thanagarian Hyperdrive, and would probably have a working prototype inside two years.

"Well we've gone through pretty much everything from the databases we do have access to," Daniel was saying, he was still going on about trying to find the lost city. At first they'd gotten off to a major false start by assuming that Atlantis on Earth was the actual ancient city, that had been a pain to explain to congress. "Anyway the problem is we've barely gotten anywhere with reconstructing the dreadnought's data systems, and then of course there is what we do know?"

The new head of the SGC groaned, and humored his former teammate, "Ok Daniel what is it that we do know about the lost city?"

"Well we know the Ancients fled the Milky Way, and from that we know that Atlantis is in another galaxy, and that it can only be dialed from Earth as a safety measure. It means we're looking at an eight chevron long address."

Jack nodded, "If I get you access to the ancient outpost we know is beneath Antartica do you think that will help?" The information from sensors, Asgard derived sensors, that had been told what to look for had picked them up. The information had been immediately classified eyes only because it risked scrambling for what was under the Antarctic ice. It hadn't been that hard to quietly increase presence since they'd been digging in that area since they'd discovered the second gate. "The Asgard think they can bring the ring system of the outpost back online, and we should be able to use a Prometheus class to get back and forth."

"That would mean tying one down," Daniel remarked, Congress wouldn't like, Ancient outpost or not.

-Chapter Conclusion-

Helltanz's Notes:


	34. Chapter 34 Steps Forward II

Chapter 34

Lightning Fervor

Helltanz's Notes:

Part II

-Chapter begin-

There was a subtle shifting amongst the spread of the ships. The soft barely luminescent glow of red energy shields against belied the shield's capacity to withstand and shrug off tens of thousands of gigatons per minute. That was of course the mere testament to the power of the old races. Reports had filtered to them of the final confirmed destruction of the last of the replicators in the Galaxy inhabited by the Asgard sometime ago.

It was to be considered good news, though better for the Aedra to be sure. This region of space known on Earth as the Perseus Arm was the region of space the Goa'uld dared not tread. Coincidentally Sokar's present domain had been formed from a vast swathe of territory bordering this region. Before his return though during the height of the Pax Re, under Ra's reign some time in the late sixteen hundreds the border region between the two worlds had been tightly patrolled by the system lords. In this day and age that was no longer the case, not that it would have mattered.

This fleet, this massing of ships was of the Daedra. Of course to realize that would require an observer to know of them, and that had the potential to be a problem in this era, since if you knew of them well...

Whatever the case this ships proudly served Jyggalag. They served the Daedric Lord of Order upon whom a curse rested to be dormant much of the time. His Faithful knew of course that one day the curse would break in full. One day enough of his foes would meet their final death and he would be free of the curse. For now though they prepared merely for the end of an Era.

Cautiously the Admiral reviewed the sensor data, there was too much interference to get accurate reads from the bulk of the Perseus arm itself of course. The Old Gods guarded their demesnes naturally, and their technology certainly helped in jamming nosy sensors, but the rest of the galaxy did not have such systems. Thus for most the galaxy, as it was for the Asgard, it was easy to monitor. It had been nearly six thousand years since warships built within the Perseus arm had moved across the borders into the galaxy at large. Into the Milky Way at least, ships left the galaxy frequently, other galaxies were fair game after all.

So their gods played their game of chess, and faithful soldiers waited. Andre had been waiting for a long time. The admiral remembered watching Sokar's armies from his sensors seeing the ships flit across slowly, achingly slowly day to day across light years during what the Goa'uld had called the terrors. More importantly he remembered watching Hircine's forces, those fleets sworn swords in service to the god of the hunt. For a long time it had looked as if Hircine would cross and plunge the galaxy into war.

In the end though that had not come to pass. This time though, "It could be different," he stated quietly watching the massed ships tremble moving by, perhaps when this era breathed its last they would strike out once again across these borders.

-scene break-

Bill flicked his wand, Dumbledore was definitely going have a cow. It was another Alien whatever it was, but it was different than the ruins left behind by Utgard. This though was different, completely different trappings obviously a different culture had build it. It still was something the local wizards of the time would have built. The surrounding human ruins, and archeological evidence was also telling.

"Do you know what we're looking at?" Hermione asked, it was a rhetorical question she didn't actually expect an answer, "This is conclusive proof of at least a third alien presence on earth during ancient times," by which she meant the Thanagarians, the Asgard, and now these.

Bill nodded picking through the feedback from his charm. "Yeah I mean there was always the idea that maybe the gods are really powerful magical beings, and then Thor shows up with a bunch of starships," A lot of the more conservative purebloods outright denied the existence of aliens outright, or explained it away as some thus unknown magical phenomenon. Of course from a muggle perspective some of the examples of alien technology might as well have been magic.

"Hmph," Moody snorted, "its based off Cunnieform styled after Aedric script," He grunted examining one of the panels and the Alteran symbols around it. "I think its safe do you see anything on your end?"

The curse breaker shook his head, "Nope looks clear to me," He announced. "Besides the shields back the way we came, and the anti apparition, and portkey blocking charms there isn't really much in the way of defenses." Of which they had had no luck finding where those spells were anchored, "I mean the defenses are all fully intact we haven't seen any breaches in them anywhere," Which itself was amazing because wards tended to at least require some level maintenance at least every few hundred years, just minor tweaks because really the spells hadn't changed much in thousands of years. So finding defenses that hadn't compromised after thousands of years had a lot of potential for other fields of research as well.

"It could be drawing off those recharging crystal batteries," Hermione remarked, "I mean they tend to recharge fairly efficiently from moonlight, and if there are enough of those they could power the facility for easily a thousand years." She speculated, "So what do you think all this means?" That was where the speculation started, and translating was probably going to depend on getting Moody to sit down after they documented every bit of the complex documented. "We should take photographs of everything," She suggested looking around. Not only would it be a good way of accurately documenting things, but it would give fellow muggleborn something productive to do for the Order. It wasn't intentional, but then again things that were institutionalized tended not be thought of consciously.

Bill shrugged, "Good idea as any. I'm just wondering if any of this will help us," He commented, "Don't get me wrong this is a find of the century, but I don't see anything that could really help us against Voldemort here." Then again Dumbledore was still absolutely positive the prophecy was the way to finish this whole thing.

-scene break-

O'neill growled as he endured yet another series of Pentagon wars. His new posting, that as commander the Earth Stargate, was already under fire this time from the Army. The only saving graces were he wasn't in the Navy's crosshairs. So it was Army engineers were getting moved to Cheyenne to start helping with processing offworld construction, which meant his problem was the Army's own officers. Navy seebees were all to busy with the Navy's terrestrial projects at the moment.

Of course then there was the planning, that they all had to sit through, about a possible expedition to Atlantis. Daniel of course was still doing the whole covert archeologist thing down in Antarctica, so it seemed a little soon. The Senate Committee was still breathing down their necks to compile a list of all alien installations on the planet so that plans could be drawn up to hopefully deal with them.

"We're concerned about the potentially deteriorating situation diplomatically," The head CIA guy was saying, which was weird because any diplomatic concerns, probably should have been coming from someone else.

O'neill perked up, maybe it was France again. The French had been pretty vocal about the whole situation, particularly after they situation with the British getting invited to have officers aboard the Illiad. Access to the Gordanian ship hadn't even quieted them down as much as had been hoped.

General Matthews, the army engineer brigadier who had been stationed to the Alpha site, piped up adding his two cents in, "What about the situation on the Korean Peninsula? Is that going to go hot any time soon?"

The spooks at the table took the time to glance at each other in turn, before the Defense Intelligence chief spoke up, "Not at present, the Chinese are making sure their little bulldog relaxes, though I imagine the bastards will want something for good behavior before long."

"What about the Russians?" O'neill asked, "Where are they in all this?" There were still reports about the Russians focusing in on their space program, especially with the current space station debacle going on. Allegedly, meaning there had been no confirmation of such a program, there was some new Star Wars style initiative for strategic defense, which could seriously alter the strategic perspective.

The Geospatial Intelligence officer looked up from his screen, "Basically we're looking at an acceleration of the same programs they've been doing. China, Russia, Iran, India, Brazil, Venezuela and several others are presently all talking," He popped up a series of high resolution satellite photos of what looked like transport containers, and started going on about coalescing intelligence from various sources along with transfers of material.

It took a minute to realize that all this language, especially on the news was sounding increasingly familiar. It was like it was cold war 2.0 all of a sudden. Then the NID director looked up, "Our special task committee should have our briefing ready on schedule." The NID and SHIELD had really dropped the ball in response to the attack on the SHIELD complex had gotten attacked, "We're still compiling our best advisement for dealing with alien weapon systems, but our preliminary statement right now is someone on Earth is conducting operations with what we believe are Alteran weapons, we have further evidence to indicate they may be metahumans. Then there are these weird energy signatures we've started getting. The first one we think we should be able to negotiate access to with the British after we talk to the Asgard, and the other..." Everybody looked at the map... there was an Ancient, as in the ruddy gate builders, on the freaking Sinai peninsula. That right there was a potential national security disaster from the moment congress got to see it.

-scene break-

Normally Raiden loved being here. This world was the gem of Raiden's empire. It was a legacy of the ages of glory of the alterans who were long dead. Today was not one of those days, he was furious. The rules regarding things meant he had to do much like Anubis had when it came to finding things, and then there was of course the condition of the galaxy.

Now Baal had command of Anubis's assets, which did eliminate one threat of course. It meant... Baal was never going to be the scientific threat that Anubis had been. On the other hand Baal was far more defensive, protectionist mind set than Anubis.

"So the Lieutenant I assigned has finally located the ruins." Artemis pronounced her voice dripping with confidence. "I told you it was only a matter of time." She stated with a great deal of smug satisfaction. It was after all a key victory, certain to be useful in the present situation.

Raiden had no patience for the bragging of success. "Yes time is exactly what it took." he growled, "And those blasted humans still managed to keep Sithis's weapon from returning to optimum efficiency." That in itself indicated alone that the world was magically powerful. That itself was a problem, and coupled with the planet's problematic location relative to goa'uld controlled space was another one. He didn't have the resources to spare at the moment to go after the world. He might have the ability to, maybe in a century or so if his other half hadn't taken measures to secure the world, but not any sooner.  
"But we did find it," Artemis protested scrambling to avert the Shinto Kami's anger. It was a find they'd been trying to locate for since before the terrors of Sokar, this all should have been good news. "We found the world all we need to do is find the Project and the Ancient Ruins complete excavations and be done with it."

Raiden's eyes narrowed in annoyance, and she made all that sound so damned simple as if he could spare the resources to pacify a world like that at the drop of a hat. "I think I know that well enough Artemis," He growled and if it was that easy. If it had been he would have done it as soon as they found the miserable little rock. He couldn't afford to expend the resources on a world that could two of Sithis's Speakers and whatever incomplete Weapon was there.

The system lord surveyed his dominion, or at least the projection of his dominion within the galaxy. The abrupt end to hostilities had caught them, the whole of the Empire, by surprise.

Kali and Shiva had both expressed some interest in Earth. That was certainly of little surprise, most Goa'uld controlled worlds were sparsely populated so the nearly one billion faithful were a very tempting asset. However even Baal would not be so brazen as to challenge.

For now though no doubt many of the system lords would be enjoying the return to the status quo, and of course picking over weakened holdings. Sokar by all reports was pressing Cammulus, and Mac Lir backwards at a concerning pace. Still it was only a matter of time before Cronus leapt in to gather his own share of the spoils. He would also have to move, further complicating his own fleet situation. There was no helping it at the moment though.

With Ra dead or out of power or whatever the situation was, because he certainly hadn't been seen in a decade things had radically changed. They would have changed anyway with Sokar, Shiva, and Anubis all returning. It'd been fortunate those three wouldn't have allied together.

-scene break-

Round nine hundred forty five of the Pentagon wars... or something, O'neill thought drearily as he sat with the other gathered leader's of the US's various intelligence and specialized service commands. "Yes" agreed another member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to something another of them had said.

They were talking about building up the fleet now that a number of the new shipyards were rapidly nearing completion. Heru'ur had brazenly offered apparently primo rates to the SGC to use some of his spare yard space. Yu Huang Shang Ti had not taken that well at all.

"The scientists at Area fifty one, and other bases, have established that we have access to the necessary raw materials to commit to the planned expansion of the fleet." Came the proclamation. "We're still trying to find a work around about the energy issue."

An admiral grimaced, the loss of the Nimitz had meant the entire Ford-class research budget had gone towards the new space fleet. "What is this going to cost?"

The generals from the regular Army, and the National Guard nodded. For the moment the army was getting relegated to being pulled out of conflict zones. Right now they were talking about pulling out of Iraq completely in two years maybe as soon as one, as well as pulling out of Afghanistan in the same time period. Then again alien invasions had that kind of effect.

The projector booted up, the choice to try and go back to dedicated gun ships had left some bitter feelings with some people. Congress though was rather insistent that obviously fighters weren't doing the job well enough, and that warships needed guns. The missile idea after the success during the invasion was getting mixed support too.

"We've demonstrated the ability to retain atmosphere through alternating force fields allowing us to launch and retrieve fighters in space," The projector swirled around giving a wide side profile of the hull design. The lines were a clear descent from the Daedalus-class hull. "Without the need to consider things like air drag," Shields, and anti gravity really helped with that, "We've completely fused the side pod features of the Daedalus-class into the hull expanding and enlarging the size of the ship over all."

Hammond looked up, "Are we talking about suspending the Daedalus-class? Taking those yards offline could critically undermine the planned build up."

"No general we're not," Another General remarked, "The plan is currently to maintain Daedalus production, while both the Daedalus-class, and the first generation Prometheus-class were important first steps we need to create a ship that is capable of going tow to tow with the meanest ships in the galaxy."

"With all due respect, sir." O'neill stated, "I've talked with the eggheads at area fifty one and our intel guys."

The General nodded, "We're aware of the report, General O'neill." O'neill tablet blinked in front of him, its political realities, Jack. Most likely that had been from Hammond, "As it is stands General we consider the threats posed by the Goa'uld capital ships the key reason to build dedicated capital ships. The success of our enhanced missiles prove that it is possible to destroy Goa'uld warships."

-scene break-

Hermione was back in London. Bill had the site well in hand, and really there wasn't much they could do until they had an understanding of the language. So for the time being they were all waiting in London looking through the gathered up photographs as Moody laid out a rather crude rosetta stone to translate. There were already obvious dialectic differences but they had to start somewhere.

Actually managing to identify things was difficult, and while Hermione hadn't mentioned it a lot of what was in the ruins seemed more like technology than magic. Saying that though had problems, there was evidence that there had been magical habitation, they'd found magical items. So far they were really just basing off assumptions, and those assumptions were painting a pretty picture.

"So Lilith, as in like?" A nod in response.

Nobody really knew what to make out of it, and then Bill came tumbling through the fire place in a flurry of green. Whatever had happened with Hades and the underworld had caused some lingering issue with international floo travel, local floo wasn't really effected that much. "Uh," Bill was clearly lightheaded, which even with the problems international floo had been happening wasn't really an issue normally. He grabbed the table unsteadily, "Get Dumbledore," He grunted, "Muggles just raided the lab,"

The word had barely left his mouth before Bill dropped... from a bolt of red light from Moody's wand, "We don't know if he's compromised," He remarked unconcernedly, "Tell everyone we're shutting off floo access to headquarters for the time being."

When Bill had been woken up Dumbledore, and a number of other members of the order had gathered around the table. Pomfrey was not pleased for having been called in seemingly second to last. What Bill recounted though was more concerning, a lot of the order members thought what had triggered was some kind of blood ward mechanism. A kind of enchantment designed to respond to magic blood, though usually such things were family locked. Of course there was speculation that the ruins might just require wizard blood to prove one was a wizard.

A lot of what Bill had to say related to the latest round of discussions and then a bunch of guys in tan clothing, what Collin piped was military camouflage for the desert. The muggles breaking in though was surprising but it was the report of what seemed like a pensieve Bill had activated except that it projected the memories all around him as opposed to him going into device. Of course Bill didn't speak Alteran... which meant were he a normal muggle he might have understood one or two words, since he understood some latin he understood a bit more than that. It still wasn't really enough to really help things.

Dumbledore nodded, "Well I can't quite understand how the muggle government could find out about this place, but I am sure we could look into this," The muggle army had been defending the site under stonehenge, and more recently Glastonbury Tor as well, but this was completely different. "I suppose we should try and find out as much as we can, carefully of course."

-scene break-

The Gamma site was busy. O'neill had had to deal with a three hour long briefing of offworld command officers. Yu's August Jade of something or another fleet had swept into the relative western portion of the Goa'uld space. Ostensibly the movement seemed to be for dealing with some upstart minor goa'uld.

It was also why the Tok'ra and Free Jaffa representatives were here. The exact reason for Yu's fleet movements seemed a little circumspect. "The western fringe," The Tok'ra was saying, and Jack was only mildly paying attention, "Is a barren wasteland, it is the stomping ground of numerous minor goa'uld fiefs."

"A wasteland filled with thousands of worlds, and countless dying Jaffa!" One of the Free Jaffa... O'neill didn't like using the word but warlord was actually the Jaffa term they were using.

Despite officially the alliance well not really being functional there was still a lot of dialog going on, at least between the SGC and Teal'c and Bra'tac. The older Jaffa nodded at the exclamation, "Yu's fleet has best survived the war with Anubis, and the abrupt end of the conflict has left it both whole, and battle hardened. It is likely that with the situation on the fringe deteriorating he considers that the territorial gains away from the other system lords, or against those who have territorial borders along it will be vulnerable at the present."

"A series of border clashes between the systems lords is rather likely," Selmak commented finally speaking up, "He may be going after something other than those worlds."

Jack nodded, "Say like the Celtic Goa'uld,"

"No, whatever issues he might have with the likes of Mac Liir," The other Tok'ra said speaking up, "he's not moved against them, thats been left to Raiden, which has been... odd."  
Selmak nodded, "What he means is its probably a pride thing, Raiden lost a lot of ships over Earth, and then the Asgard showed up, with the Celtic goa'uld faltering he's presented an opportunity. I'm more concerned about Cronus's actions recently, what have you heard so far?"

"That he's been moving through the last unclaimed remnants of Apophis's domain," Specifically worlds that Apophis had claimed from Ra, "and he's had a couple minor border skirmishes with Sokar," As far as Earth was concerned it was too far away to be a major issue. Sokar was well away from Earth.

Bra'tac frowned, "Cronus's power grows again, waxing in the wake of Anubis's defeat, and his armies march with some unknown purpose." The information that the Jaffa were bringing wasn't very detailed, only that Cronus was after something. The titan was still looking for Zeus but there was also his efforts during the war with Anubis to consider, and what that might play in regarding now. "The worlds he is invading are carefully chosen as if he is searching for something."

"We have not heard much from Chulak," Teal'c remarked, when Apophis's domain had fallen Chulak had been swallowed into Sokar's domain, "But now we hear that Sokar has plans to expand his hold over the world." Well that was news considering that when he'd taken it, he hadn't bothered doing much.

Selmak nodded, "What about earth's fleet?"

"We're building up?" Jack shrugged, "There isn't really much to tell, we're just now getting most of our yards to start working on hulls."

-scene break-

Things had in a way finally got back to normal, or close enough. There was the still ongoing senate debate over mutants, but given how much debate the legislature went through that wasn't likely to end any time soon.

The president's speech might have calmed things down, but the hearings were still going on. It was keeping Storm and Beast busy enough, and Xavier had left the manor some hours earlier, for some kind of emergency call from Scotland.

Rebuilding the institute hadn't really been an issue for Xavier. It'd even come with plenty of renovations, though they hadn't gotten the option to paint the walls. That had been left to a professional paint service.

The professor had even spent the money for the latest improvement in sound system technology, which Spike had taken liberal use of in his role as party DJ. Of course if the professor had had any neighbors would have earned a vocal noise complaint. There was no telling how long he'd be back in town, apparently he'd made friends in Dakota, and was eager to get back after the sentinel attack.

In normal circumstances none of this would have mattered to him. The politics of this world were largely irrelevant under normal situations, just as the music was irrelevant. The music, or at least what the humans called music, blared at what amounted to atrociously high volumes.

Sithis could have cared less. His magic coiled flaring as it pulsed. Gone were the flowing open black robes, or even the altmaterium mail armor, Daedric pauldrons. He dressed in dark business slacks and a matching black shirt. The dark clothes further accentuated his pale flesh, and his ebony hair was pleated at the nape of his neck. If anything he cut the picture of a stern late portion of the twentieth century businessman. "Should I take it upon myself to hazard a guess as to the reason for your distress?" he inquired, the almost serpentine quality of his voice cutting through the air despite the deafening tones of the music. It was a simple trick of magic not even worth conscious thought, merely the will to be heard.

Rogue looked up more than a little shocked. "Shouldn't ya think ta knock before entering a lady's room?" She had shut the door to avoid being any more disturbed to begin with.

This was the being who had originally Harry Potter, the boy who lived, transformed in the Age of Myth in the end becoming the Dread Father Sithis. He'd lived for millions of years, enough to see species rise, and die. "I am quite certain your music would have obscured any attempt to announce my arrival." He remarked. The comment was of course untrue, but she didn't need to know that.

She waved the god off. "So what makes ya think I need your help?"

Sithis raised an eyebrow. "Something has caused you some amount of distress," reiterated the Daedric lord. He had considered ordering Constantinos to bring him the offender, but had decided against it... for the moment.

"Ah it was nothing." She stated in a feminine southern Drawl. Seeing that the death god didn't seem to believe the statement Rogue elaborated. "It was just some anti mutant hooligans at school."

Sithis nodded. "Then it is decided." It was as he thought. His magic curled furious and cold within, he knew that those same problems had been an issue for Arkay's sworn as well, enough that Arkay had manifested twice. This was an offense, a heresy against them, a crime against the gods themselves as the priests would say. It was a trespass against his own... it would not stand.

"What?" Rogue exclaimed, "What's decided?" she asked the inquiry partially tinged with annoyance.

"I shall be accompanying you." Sithis stated as if it was an obvious conclusion

"The heck you are." Rogue responded. She'd heard enough of this, there were enough problems going on between the yet another alien invasion clean up, and the mutant haters, never mind all the other mess that constantly cropping up.

Sithis raised a perfectly crafted eyebrow at the protest, "I fail to see the reason for the objection to my accompanying, they offend you," he commented. "It is either that, or Constantinos will bring me their heads," Being attached to their bodies was completely optional. He would take their souls for this offense one way or another. It would settle the matter one way or another. Even through all the noise that was reverberating through the rebuilt mansion. It was entirely possible everyone on the same floor or the wing might end up feeling it as it flowed. There was the unsettling cold of magic, and his irritation made palpable. He had been considering his options for sometime as it was. Little fault could be laid at Constantinos's feet for this. It was true that while it was annoying the man could not be present constantly. He'd settle for laying the fault on the responsible party in the first place. "This was not up for debate," He commented, "I would sooner fix this, rather than wait, and eventually have it force Arkay's hand as well."

"I-," There was a groan, the name got bandied about... and originally she'd figured it was just one of Logan's friends, but that had gone out the window soon enough, "What about him?" The guy had been popping in more recently than before so something had to be up.

His face set in an unreadable expression, "Do you think that these fools, that they challenge only adolescents?" Sithis questioned rhetorically, "They are a folly ridden lot insistent to challenging their betters." The dark god grunted, "They make perhaps as much trouble, or more for the others, Hircine would have me believe it merely natural selection,"

"I don't want to know," Her response was met with a nod, better that she didn't meet the lord of the hunt just yet in his opinion. "In fact the whole situation is enough of a mess..." Rogue sat back down and crossed her legs indian style, "alrigh' so what now, what are you going to do? I mean Xavier thinks that," She trailed off the Xmen were all divided on were they stood on Xavier's position. Every day it seemed like the situation got worse.  
Sithis raised an eyebrow it was the most normal gesture she'd seen him do, but then a being billions of years in age was so far from normal it was understandable. He was a grim patrician growing from infant to man in another epoch of humanity all together alien from this one. What did she expect his response was going to be, "Xavier's wishes on the matter are inconsequential to us," He murmured softly. Let them scramble about of these genetic oddities it was such a waste of time complaining about it.

"Well," She wasn't sure whether he was just using the royal we, or if he honestly believed she should ignore what the professor wanted. Still the notion of him showing up at Bayville High... well Constantinos was at least a thousand years old and he stuck out like a sore thumb. The chances of well Sithis being anything remotely resembling inconspicuous while at the school was slim to none in her opinion. "thats all well and good, but the professor is off in Scotland so we should give him time to get back, and its the weekend so no school until Monday. So you don't need to worry about it." She really hoped he bought it, tomorrow storm was supposed to be getting back from DC, but there was no telling when Xavier would be getting back. All she could really hope for was that there wouldn't be any incidents in Bayville over the weekend. If something did happen she'd never hear the end of it if this was any indication. If they were lucky Duncan Matthew and his band of idiots would have the good sense not to do anything stupid come monday.

-Chapter Conclusion–

Helltanz's Notes: The wizards are finally on the road to meeting the SGC.


	35. Chapter 35 Interlude V

Chapter 35

Lightning Fervor

Helltanz's Notes:

-Chapter begin-

The situation amongst the Goa'uld was tenuous. It was true that Yu Huang Shang Ti had taken this moment of weakness amongst the empire to send his less valuable fleets into the wastes to consolidate the chaotic territories. Then of course it was true that others were scrambling to also make quick gains from the chaos of this abruptly ended war between the system lords. It was true that Sokar, and Cronus were both pursuing their own ends, and Heru'ur was very busy with some development or another.

Of course the Asgard had their own concerns as well. Loki was once more free to run amok, and the fleets were still in the process of being rebuilt after the long and terrible war against the Replicators.

If anyone were to ask Wotan was uninterested in any of these things. The goa'uld had been fighting amongst themselves for tens of thousands of years, and the demonstration at the battle for Earth had proven the Asgard resolve. There would not be any violation of Asgard protected planets any time soon.

What Wotan was interested in was his agreement with Utgard-Loki. The humans were interesting enough, meddling with one of the Jotun's little systems, but there were other humans who had caught his eye. Utgard could fiddle all he liked amongst the wizards if and when he came, but the other humans on this world were of interest all of their own, in particular of course were certain markers yes Thor had made his declaration clear.

Colonel Fury of SHIELD found he did not like suddenly being teleported away from his meeting. It was just the latest in a series of meetings related to his organization's expansion, or their observations of certain major non government powers. That wasn't to say listening to logistics prattle on about suspicious material movements, and research by OsCorp was interesting, but it was still important to piecing together what OsCorp wanted Doctor Connor's to do with that formula, which was their current priority one goal. The colonel stood up and looked around, he recognized the after effects of the asgard transporters.

It shouldn't have been possible to beam him up from SHIELD headquarters, so hypothetically that ruled out the Goa'uld, but perhaps not rogue elements within the US government... the fixtures though definitely added credence to the idea that this was someone else. The fixtures were asgardian.

"I am Wotan of Asgard good man," The asgard declared through his hologram, "my ship presently sits above your world."

Fury had a good idea how Jack O'neill felt now, "So I see, why am I here?" Wotan was simply a variation of Woden the more common German spelling of Odin, the King of the Aesir. "Your people generally grab air force officers,"

"Yes, Thor's fondness is legendary," Wotan rumbled in reply, "you though are still of interest to Asgard. O'neill's state is a result of interbreeding somewhere down the line with one of our ancient allies, but you are science wrought, and skill perfected."

...translator then Fury guessed no doubt that would have sounded even more poetic in whatever language Wotan was used to speaking. "So what does that have to do with anything, you could have just asked?"

"Asked? I think not Nicolas Fury, for I have nothing to ask. I come with tidings of ill news indeed. Yu and Cronus, Sokar and Heru'ur are all frightfully quick in their consolidation. They flit about currying influence"  
Fury shook his head, "The SGC's business, why bring it up to me?"

"Why because they are not the concern, you're concern should be the goa'uld who are free to act on your world. Hades, and Raiden, and beyond them the other powers that are stirring." The affairs of the galaxy at large were dull, but Earth was a thousand things happening on one little world. "How many times has your world been invaded only for you to narrowly throw it back. I come with tidings of another invasion."

Fury blinked, "What do you mean another?"

"The Goa'uld do not dare attack, even Raiden for all his arrogance dares not muster his spears to strike, not with his ships in such disarray. Asgard cannot but pass simple things, but if some else attacks and their technology remains well then just a blood price for the offense is it not?"

Fury stared, "You're telling me to get ready for another invasion. We can take the technology and turn it against our enemies." That was what they'd been doing anyway, sure the attack from some of the aliens hadn't been that useful, but they were learning. It was the Thanagarian Invasion, and Anubis that had helped the most to be sure when it came to building an understanding of alien technology.

"Of course, your Justice League, and all your heroes should make it simple enough. The strike will come fast, but will have no staying power. No stamina to hold, and the foe is week, but still enough to help you to break out into space."

The asgard might have been saying all of this but Fury really doubted whether Congress was really going to like getting told hey another alien invasion, nothing we can do but kick their ass after they land, and take their stuff. "So what-"

Fury found himself abruptly back in his chair. Wotan certainly seemed confident that they could beat the threat, and Fury understood why he doubted they could prevent the invasion. Earth's fleet was constantly occupied with the dozens of tasks, and projects the government had set forth for the fledgling space fleet. Oh sure congress, and this was both parties, wanted Earth to be defended but they also wanted a dozen other projects and that meant the ships had to be constantly going form place to place.

"Sir?"

Fury made a noise in the back of his throat, and pinched the bridge of his nose, "As of now we have credible intel of a near future threat extraterrestrial invasion by an alien power,"

-scene break-

Cronus's gift was just the latest in a string of headache inducers. The Goa'uld System lord had presented the SGC was a kind of Rosetta Stone or would have been if Earth didn't have translations already. It was just one more additional headache since it upped the attention the SGC was getting. It seemed like every ancient alien nut, and even legitimate archeologist was descending on Colorado.

If all this wasn't bad enough it was the FBI getting a hold of a copy of a security camera from Anubis's invasion. The whole thing reeked of internal politics to be honest. Still here they were having to deal with it.

"It looks like some kind of ancient technology,"

The Marine officer nodded, "Some kind of ancient power, in built shields, energy weapons," It was just a little too similar to what Sokar was fielded, even if Sokar's version didn't have shields, and for that matter the energy weapons were definitely similar to the kull plasma weapon. It wasn't all that surprising allegedly those Gamma ray beam satellites were based off of Susano's back engineering of a system Ra had had back engineered from an ancient design... which meant the going theory was Raiden had stolen them from Susanoo who had gotten them from Ra, who had picked them out of some ancient ruin somewhere a long time ago.

"Whats special about this particular issue of tech, besides the FBI getting nosy," The bureau didn't have a jurisdictional leg to stand on, but it wasn't stopping them from being nosy. "It can't be that bad can it?" It was a pity Daniel was still tied up dealing with diplomatic stuff... again. Still it didn't make a lot of sense why now of all times this was becoming an issue. The videos had been around, or rather footage like it had been around. They'd been so prevalent after the invasion the NID hadn't even tried to keep them off youtube, and sites like it. The lucky thing was most people were focusing on all the superheroes who were running around during the invasion to focus on strange people with energy weapons when there were aliens with energy weapons running around.

One of the doctors from Area 51 shrugged, "Well it kinda can general, even the old goa'uld staff weapons," which had pretty much been phased out, amongst the System Lords,over the last year as a result of the increasingly violent clashes amongst the System Lords, "Were mature plasma technology it was the ergonomic issue that was the problem, but even Ra's staff design was better from a power perspective... well this is..."

A handful of the surviving early officers present remembered reading the paper work after they'd reopened the stargate program after Apophis came through and reestablished contact with Abydos. Ra's Guard's staffs were modified, and it turned out that Bra'tac's staff, and the other Jaffa Guard had similar tweaking, which had probably been based off of Ra's elite's modifications. A few years later Heru'ur had introduced and improve 'plasma jacket technique' as it was termed improving accuracy substantially, but it still hadn't changed the issue of the staff's ergonomics. Now though well the System Lords had finally adopted their own variations of a more rifled form.

"Not good news," Jack finished. "Its ancient technology isn't it, one of there designs." There was a nod, and really he shouldn't have been surprised well he'd have to ask the asgard to look through the videos may they could figure it out.

The man shook his head, "Yes sir, we know the ancients have caches on the planet so its entirely possible this group just found them, but that doesn't mean we should discount the other possibility." Which meant keeping them away from the FBI.

Jack understood why Congress was doing this. The Protected Planet's treaty distinctly favored the air force, that much was obvious. It was also a convenient excuse to tell other nations that they couldn't share. The SGC though also had its share of getting shafted by congress. Exploration was no longer their mandate, but rather expansion of offworld facilities, and research. It did keep them from having to deal annoying civilian oversight boards.

The DoD had made it expressly clear. Stargate Command's primary function was now the expansion of those offworld facilities just in case earth fell. That this just happened to give the air force an excuse to have Stargate Command supervise shipyard construction was completely coincidental. The other SGC mandate was preparing earth for any alien threats.

–scene break-

Thau was ancient by human standards. His genetic memory had made him wise beyond his years before he'd even hit puberty though, and now he was a true force to be reckoned, but he was still only a demigod... never mind he could have snapped Baal's neck with a thought. The system lord had been his father... Anubis's chief lieutenant but he knew next to nothing about the threats that existed beyond known space, which was odd given Baal had once served Sokar as well.

Sokar who gleefully served the Daedra. Sokar who had waged a bloody genocidal war against the Goa'uld and depopulated scores upon scores of worlds in massive rampages. Of course Baal had been independent of Sokar long before that. Thau though had remembered Ancient Egypt on Earth, and Sokar's brief reign on the world. Sokar meddled with things he shouldn't have, and trying to warn Baal was only meeting with minimal success.

The Daedric Lord Hircine, and others, had taken their time after Hircine had hunted the Furlings to extinction. He and one of his fellows had found a face similar to the Unas who had reached the industrial age. The Daedra had carefully molded them equipping them with technology, and scattering the various tribes across far space worlds.

Tens of thousands of years later Sokar had come across one of these worlds, and then a bad moon had rose over the galaxy. Sokar went and found religion. He studied the Daedra based particle weaponry particularly plasma weapons and found that they were similar to the ancient weapons that the goa'uld Ma'tok's were based off of except intended for war.

This had been long ago, even for Thau or Baal. It was a distant painful memory. Before Ra had cemented his rule the Goa'uld had been even more fractious. Constantly fighting amongst one another. In those days minor goa'uld had been a much more potent assest, but then Ra rose to power and consolidated the galactic regime. A consolidation that had cost the lives of hundreds of millions of Jaffa in violent conflict.

A price in blood that would be a drop in the bucket if Sokar rose again. A new age of war was dawning yes, but if the Daedra were stirring too then truly there were few options. If they were, well Thau knew because Anubis had known that the quality of the ancients technology.

Nothing short of an Alteran Ramius class, a seven thousand eight hundred meter long battleship, could hope to face a warship of the Aedra or Daedra. A Ramius which itself was a ship of immense and highly focused destructive power, as well as exceptional defensible ability, was the minimum needed to posed a significant face to face threat to even a Daedric, or Aedric Light Fleet Combatant, what the Tauri would call a Light cruiser.

To even command a Ramius would change the face of the galaxy. Thau knew that to possess such a ship would allow him to wipe away one of Raiden's vaunted Shinku Rai Tatsu class battleships with ease. It was wishful thinking though unless he could find one, and the last time they had really been seen by the goa'uld was long ago.

With Ra either dead, or simply in hiding, and doing a very good job staying in the shadows, it meant Ptah was the only real lead that Thau had. It was true that there were rumors that Cronus was scrambling after some Ancient cache of technology all of a sudden, but Thau couldn't imagine the old titan finding anything of note, not that deep in goa'uld space. Baal agreed, which meant Osiris was the long voice of concern.

-scene break-

The Autumn Midnight, the center piece of the fleet, its flagship. It was but one testament to the power of the Dread Father, but it was a great one. The warship was the center piece of this fleet.

Beyond the vastness of the fleet present, or even the majesty that the Autumn Midnight in all its grim and terrible power conveyed were the the world's orbital defenses. There were of course the mobile suits as well. In more than a million years not much had changed in many ways for all the numerous defenses they were much like the garrison that had defended the world during the War in Heaven.

The idea of the very first mobile suits, of course, had been pioneered during the last years of the Ancient's dominance. Only just before the War of Heaven, the conflict which brought about the end of the Age of Dreams.

The Dread Father Sithis sat here amongst the dark of Space his fleet resting above a shadowy world's covered primarily by three colors. Green which were typically the massive forest or prairie reserves or the massive farms. The blue of the oceans and seas. Finally the black which were the huge shadowy structures. This latter well some massive urban locations, others simply sheer cathedrals and temples which would make the average megalomaniac Goa'uld green with envy.

Where once one the Ayeleid Star Empire's worlds rested now rested one of the dark jewels of Sithis's own empire. The Ayeleid's greatest rising star and the cause for its downfall and destruction sat. He had had his reasons long ago, but those were lost to the rest of the galaxy in the ever flowing sands of history, and those that might still have known would have called them petty. It would not have been an unfounded criticism considering he'd launched a rebellion that had brought the Ayelied Empire crashing down to the ground, but all that was long ago.

Sithis smiled, fondly remembering the age of dreams. They had been a beloved time, before all of this, before the War in Heaven. It was not to say he was not fond of this age, it had its pleasant moments, but the nostalgia memories of the old times were so fond to him as to be painful.

One of the Judiciaries of the Brotherhood, an Executioner ranked member in other words, rushed forward before bowing before the Daedric Lord. "Dread Father, the Night Mother has arrived." He announced stirring him briefly from his reminiscing.

The Dark Father rose from the cathedra like chair though the chair in question predated modern humans of earth. He eyes caught site of the massive construct. Yes not much had changed in significant ways.

The Bairn, this colossal facility in question was easily Raiden's greatest asset, but even then the massive Alteran ship was nothing in comparison to the Alter of the Patriarch which floated over this world which under the control of Sithis. The Alter served much the same purpose though, and he had had the Alter built during the war in Heaven... of course it hadn't been dedicated to him originally. That re dedication had come later after the Ayelied had fallen.

Long ago the Ayelieds had been the most militaristic of the 'Ancients' but even they were arrogant. In the end the Ayelied had fallen in battle, but not against an outside foe, now rather they'd died because of a force from within. The ancients in their arrogance had slowly advanced in most cases, but still lorded their power over their lesser subjects and even lower ranked members of their own race.

His smile didn't fade, he remembered figuring out what was necessary. Then conveniently insuring his brother would get access to his arcane research... Stenddarr had taken the bait rushing off to form the Aedra. The war though... he was less than fond of remembering.

Not even all the Goa'uld combined could stop one of the Daedric Fleets. This was important to remember... This era was dying. To not prepare for the inevitable bloodshed was foolish. Even so it would be nice to set Nocturnal's concerns at ease, it was true Sanguine's fleets were flitting about a bit more than normal, but given the circumstances it was understandable.

Sitihis could not particularly say he liked Sanguine, but he was certainly pleased at Nocturnal's choice to visit. Certainly she come to him after all, than go to her sister about the issue... in truth he'd be glad just to set her at ease.

It was nostalgia now that was effectively all that could touch him. The memories of the old days before all of this, but things would change. It would probably not be this cycle of course, or even the next, but one day... one day... truly a future to work towards.

-scene break-

Heatherfield was it usual fare, and the guardians were for the most part more concerned with their own lives. It was just now turning to night on the little blue world, the sky still tinged a little pink, and the moon was just now reaching the lower houses. It would be hours before the moon reached its full height

Will scowled a facial expression emulated by her fellow Gaurdians of Earth. After the invasion they hadn't even had managed to be rid of Phobos and Cedric. It was unfortunate but they ended up working well.

Even so it was a mess. The whole thing was a mess. It was bad enough having to work with Cedric, but Phobos was even worse, and he complained about the idea as much as they did. Most of the time it wasn't even Nerissa they were having to deal with.

It was certainly true that the Justice League, and various other superheroes helped keep their work load fairly easy, but just last week they'd had had to deal with some super freaky death cult. That bunch of blood thirsty nihilistic psycho priests had been a real pain to deal with... pun not intended. Of course Sithis had had nothing to do with them, either dealing with the priests or helping deal with them.

Now though well it was a completely different situation, he'd been standing around before he'd gotten attacked. It was true he was narrowly skirting the rules twisting them narrowly to his will so he could get away with this bit of meddling. On the plus side he was helping now, as opposed to just standing around.

The blow had originally been meant for Phobos, but Sithis's hand had reached out and snatched the arm pulling it, and it's owner off balance. There was the sickening crack of the bone and it roused them back to attention. Sithis had already let the arm go. The daedric lord was unconcerned as he allowed the mind controlled puppet to escape, after all it didn't serve his interests to kill just yet. Killing the 'guard' would do nothing in this case to serve his plans.

The Dark God was clothed in much the same fashion as he had been in the gaurdians first enounter. His entire being expunging his otherworldly nature. It was however the very taint of his magic though that pressed on their senses. The cold feeling of the void manifest was like the tide coming in while you stood on the beach.

Caleb charged swinging a sword. a courtesy the god of death did not even bother to return. Sithis cassually cast the rebel leader aside and out of his way in to a pile of rubbish... the guardians always seemed to be fighting in these back alleys... actually for that matter it seemed the detective was as well. "I do seem to recall mentioning something," he remarked ignoring the rebel leader who was busy trying to claw his way out of the refuse pile.

"We are not handing over Ellyon!" the gaurdian of earth shouted thrusting her hand out, while making sure she was in front of the aforementioned princess. Cornelia didn't care at the moment whether or not he'd been helping them, or if Phobos and Cedric had been helping them against Nerissa; she was tired of hearing this. She was tired of him tossing Caleb around like that too.

Sithis's eyes glimmered and the incoming projectiles of stone were disentegrated by a sudden surge in gravity.

"Sithis maybe we can talk about this," The keeper of the heart stepped in front of the Daedric lord. It was really the only way to keep this from escalating, that and Phobos was already diverting magic into specific pools. She could feel the shift, they'd all been more sensitive to the flow of magic after whatever it had been months ago.

His hand interlinked, "Little one," he began in an unconcerned manner, "What is there to discuss," he querried, "Nerrisa has gained possession of the Heart of Zambala something you could not prevent," There was a narrorwing Daedric lord's serpentine and death colored eyes swept across the guardian of the heart, she shivered.

She didn't know what to make of the situation."Guys whats going on?" Ellyon asked , it was bad enough that her friend had apparently developed magic or superpowers or whatever, but this turn seemed for the worse.

His breath tickled her neck despite being over a foot away as he spoke. This was his key opportunity, "Earth has many dedicated to its well being, but you are not of this world little child. You were spirited away from another world."

"Who… who are you?" she queired he voice a bit shaky.

"I am the Dread Father Sithis. The Lord of the Void, The Serpent god of Death, I am the eternal, immutable, god of chaos and patron of assassins." He stated, his voice brushed softly like an autumn wind.

Then all the serenity was gone in an instant. A blast of lightning split the air, and Will, and the others instantly knew Nerrissa had come to crash the party. It was bad enough she'd mind controlled some of the rebels, and they had had no idea how she'd done that, which was bad, but now she was here to.

Phobos cursed straightening to full height, "the fallen Guardian," He snarled rounding to face the new foe magic burning in his veins.

Sithis snorted,. The last generation of guardians had had potential so much sympathetic magic, and its members had plenty of individual potential... enough to have been dangerous even.

"Gaurdians unite," Will shouted as the quintet took flight soaring in to the dark sky. She might not have liked it but she was hoping Phobos and Cedric would jump into the fight on their side they could have used the help. Nerissa and ... the others were all as powerful as they were, and had better control of their powers.

The ten had immediately went into an element melee, it might have had the potential to have been interesting if the current generation had more experience, but they didn't. As it was the battle distinctly favored Nerissa... not that it mattered. Will had already foolishly invited him to conflict, a single angrily demanded call for help as he'd stood around. They had gotten so used to it, even though he supported Phobos, and they knew it. The Daedric god allowed himself an amused smirk, if nothing else it would be amusing.

Nerrisa's generation of mind controlled gaurdians attacked, more skill and power than the current generation. They were mature guardians, at their prime, and with their experience made them all the more dangerous. Of course that had been precisely why he'd been loitering until asked, until demanded.

Ellyon was a matter for another time now.

Taking a step he joined the ten, the two generations of gaurdians, in the air. There was no point to growing wing, "You are as I have stated at a rather obvious disadvantage," the Death god commented. "Help? You demanded it," He remarked 'stepping' around teh guardian of the Heart of Kandrakhar.

"YOU!" hissed Nerrisa recoilling sharply. The Daedric and Aedric lords despised Kandrakar, a feeling that was all too mutual. How could it not being forged from the deaths of one of each. Still this was wrong all kinds of wrong creatures the like of the Lords were forbidden from appearing like this... it was wrong oh so wrong.

He ignored the exclamation for in the clawed fingers of the daedric lord's other arm a Lapus Lazuli gem formed, "Help? Yes this will, I cannot unduly grant the skill to beat them, but power, power instantly granted yes." he whispered in to her, Will's, ear. The divine patron of assassins did not wait for a response his hand went into the gaurdian's leader's chest, as his other arm grasped a shoulder.

Will's body spasmed for a moment in the dark god's arms as the second heart 'supplemented' Kandrakar's, the Faerie like attire was replaced with a more daedric style apparel, her irises turned a luminous shade of blood red. Her faerie like wings also changed in to an almost angeline pair her hair and indeed her body as well gained several inches in length and height respectively. Along with a few other physical changes came a more clear magical change... the void's power surge.

The Dark god's arm slipped away and Will attacked, barrelling through the former generation of gaurdians with clear and obvious ease. There was however a problem Will clearly had no control over the sheer unrelenting power. That much was evident to anyone who watched this, even Caleb on the ground who had no training in the magical arts.

"What the hell did you do to her?" demanded Irma rounding to face the ancient with a fury. He said nothing, and in the mere span breaths it was over and done with.

The raw power at her command let smash through the gaurdians defending Nerrisa and even seize her by the throat. The Guardians self control though, he'd discounted it, Will wouldn't bring herself to do it. The sudden change allowed Nerrisa to escape. A defiant focus of willpower over came raw instinct.

It hardly mattered in the end, it was done. Nerrissa might have been alive, but another heart was now in play. Phobos clearly didn't understand, evident by the looks of disbelief the boy was giving him. No doubt he expected to be bestowed such a power, and could not fathom the cause to give it to an enemy.

"Will are you okay?" inquired Tarranee as the Gaurdians of Earth flew their beleagured leader to the solid ground beneath their feeet. The Gaurdians channelled magic, their natural powers supplemented in their transformed state by the Heart of Kandrakhar. Will though was now supplemented by a second.

Will's expression was one of shock, "I can't, we can't become like her," She was back to human form now, but as she blustered it was evident she was still quelling the raw instinct of the other world. She'd conquer it, it was simply a matter of willpower. In human form it would only be a minimal issue, and she'd have to being drawing on the power for it to even matter in any real capacity.

"What's wrong with her?" Cornellia demanded sternly crossing her arms and trying to look imposing. Try being the critical word. As a guardian she was powerful, yes, and a threat to Cedric in single combat, also true, but against a god... a laughable matter.

"I am the end of the cycle, and the birth of the next. I am eternity." He declared, "What is the power of a single world beneath the black wings of death to me," The dark god boasted, "You cannot comprehend infinity."

Corneilla scowled, a faint growl could be heard in the air around her. The earth cracked under her feet.

"Are you coming?" he asked ever amused by the situation.

"Guys whats going on?" Ellyon inquired again in much the same manner as a child left out of the loop. This had to be some kind of superhero something or another, and she was really tired of being out of the loop.

The gaurdian of the element of earth turned to the other blonde, "Don't worry Ellyon I'll explain everything." she promised, in the proccess scooping her up seeing as she couldn't fly under her own power... not yet, but one day soon maybe she would.

-Chapter Conclusion-

Helltanz's Notes: Definitely needs some work, but for now I'll leave it like this.


	36. Chapter 36 Armaments I

Chapter 36

Lightning Fervor

Helltanz's Notes: Not much to say here.

-Chapter begin-

Latest Intelligence was what the top of the paper had written on it. The SGC was mindful to keep a close eye on the situation between the system lords. What they really needed was a better code name than Predator for the ship design the Celtic Coalition was fielding, but no Jack had had to go make a Star Trek reference when they'd first id-ed the ship. "The technology is well, "The Major stopped talking, "Well they took that trinium encasement technique from Apophis's prototype mothership SG 1 destroyed," and then of course Baal had supplied them with Anubis's technology earlier than he had for the other system lords, along with the intelligence he had on Raiden's weapons and shields. The ship class was nothing to trifle with.

"Indeed," Teal'c agreed, "They manage a capable facsimile of the capability of Raiden's Storm-class dreadnoughts for a fraction of the cost, and material." It was part of the reason they were so interested in them, both Jaffa, and Tauri. They weren't cheap but for overall cost they actually managed to be less costly than building a full Ha'tak. The new class managed to rival Raiden's dreadnoughts because the coalition wasn't fielding fighters, not really, and that freed up space, and alleviated concerns for maintenance. The simplicity of overall hull design, and of course the trinium hull case around the heavy naquadah reactor that was the ship's power plant made the ship design very survivable.

The naval officer who was also present nodded, "Well its good they're giving him some trouble it'll draw this out," The original fear would have been that Raiden's tech advantage was going to let him roll the Celts easy, but apparently Anubis must have done more damage than the Shinto god had been letting on. This little skirmish had gotten the neutral powers attention. "Kali's version is further expanding the hull to accommodate more systems and her yards over Apophis's former worlds are already churning out early blocks." The alliance was actually proving very useful, if only because there was the looming threat of Ra and of course the ever dangerous one side winning the whole she bang. The new ships weren't identical but they were rough copies, without Baal's no doubt modifications they probably weren't as effective, but Kali and Bastet had time to work out the kinks from the looks of things.

It also helped Earth's engineers get practical experience watching the construction of such reactors... of course Earth still needed to be able to build big enough hulls to base such systems. The goa'uld were busy trying other systems, even bringing back older siege systems.

"Ah gentlemen we apologize for keeping you waiting," The senator remarked plodding into the room, "The hill is getting to be such a pain, but you have something for us? Something about the ancients?"

There were a series of nods. They had plenty of information about ancient ships, enough to inundate the officers responsible for cataloging ancient data. That data hadn't been deemed as important, but this was, because it wasn't ancient though the ships were definitely constructed by the race that had built the stargate network. The projector started up, "Unfortunately because of sheer power generation getting an accurate reading on Asgard front line combatants," like the latest battleships the O'neill class "much less these ships, is difficult." On the screen was the massive form of a ship.

"Those are big guns aren't they?" The second senator asked needlessly.

The Major nodded, "Sir this ship out masses entire goa'uld fleets by itself. It appears to be an Ancient battleship," They hoped, given its size and the number of them there was a not unfounded fear that it might be a cruiser of some make. "Unlike the dreadnought," Which was significantly smaller, "ruins we have access to this is substantially more modern, give the fleet its present with, and Asgard review we think its only six or seven centuries old."

"Now by standards thats very young?"

Teal'c nodded slowly, "Senator the Gate builders have been missing since before the dominance of the goa'uld, these vessels sudden appearance is as the Tauri would say a game changer."

"How big are we talking here? Exactly?"

The ship image faded replaced with the backdrop of space, "We counted a fleet disposition roughly equivalent in size to a goa'uld assualt fleet. Ninety plus ships, most kilometer plus in size." Which normally wasn't saying much the Type 2 Ha'tak design had been a standardized one kilometer ship, and the newer version Goa'uld Ha'tak in service tended to be larger. Of course the Ha'tak design itself tended to be that larger to accommodate the dozen plus needs the Goa'uld wanted it to accomplish. A thousand years ago the goa'uld had needed it to carry raw material, fighters, bombers, not to mention slaves, and Jaffa in addition to individual needs today the Ha'tak was approaching the end of service. Even Raiden's Type 4 and the Super Ha'tak were less dangerous against dedicated warships like Anubis's Tuat class. Of course less dangerous didn't mean no threat when the ships still tossed around blasts measures in hundred of megatons every few seconds.

For the SGC getting even a rough idea of what a modern ancient fleet looked like could help answer questions. Of course if the ancients were returning that might not be a good thing. The original ship was back up this time with added highlights.

"Those are mobile suit hangars aren't they?" The oldest senator asked. Things like aviation facilities tended to look the similar regardless if it was the Chinese, or Russians building them so why wouldn't that idea hold.

A brief nod, "We're pretty sure. It seems like they're, and mobile armors are based off ancient technology. The dreadnought crash had mobile armor hangars, but as far as we've seen no hangars for MS units. These ships appear to be have both." Chances were a long time ago the Goa'uld had found ancient facilities and picked them over. Naquadah produced the energy density to power such weapons, and those systems could be micronized without tremendous loss in capacity either. "We estimate that this ship probably carries an air wing equivalent in number to the USN's entire complement."

"So fighters, even if they're these giant robots, are still practical?" The second senator asked, "I thought that was the opposite of what we were seeing.

The Air Force and Navy lamented that with Earth technology fighters for dogfighter roles were for the moment out of their depth. France had been the first to reactivate Air to Air nuclear weapons, and talks were proceeding with the Russians to do the same. Nuclear air launched cruise missiles were hopefully enough to down even shielded close formation mobile armors... well goa'uld ones at least. "Mobile suits are largely used Close Air Support or strike roles, and for fighting other mobile units." It was the first bit that tweaked the air force, who'd been getting demands from the army for years for more Warthogs, and more close air support aircraft now they had to contend with the fact they weren't sure even a nuclear AMRAAM was completely sure to kill the enemy. Congress wasn't exactly jumping to test fighter mounted nukes either the situation in space was already getting complaints a plenty.

"We do have some good news." That monster of a gate builder ship faded replaced by earth's ancient ruins, and segmented by separate pictures. "If we hadn't discovered the drone technology in the way we had..." the sheer difference between them and other examples of ancient tech, "Well they're an anomaly with what we are used to seeing with Ancient technology. Each drone is controlled by a mental link, and from what we've pieced together they're the ancient equivalent of surface to air missiles." The raw difference in power between Ancient systems, allowed large numbers to obliterate even state of the art Goa'uld vessels. "Because of the difference between them well beyond normal ancient tech we can't reproduce them, not until we find a factory or something however," A six sided cube, "This is a tesseract its an Ancient Power source, we think the ancients called them potentia. They work from drawing theoretically unlimitted energy from sub levels of reality which allows us to power the ancient defenses on Earth." because Earth had two of them, and the other ancient power source O'neill had brought back from that volcano hell world. "This is on the other hand is vastly simpler," and the screen highlighted another ancient weapon system, and once again proved the Goa'uld were good about appropriating tech when they found it. "this is an Ancient based continuous beam weapon system and as long as we had the material for the hull we could power it using our naquadah generators."

That got their attention, "I'm sensing a but here. The AG 3 series proposal can be powered by our own generator models."

"We can build our own version and attach it to the Freedom Star space station," From the information that they had on the system the ancients mass produced these systems as low energy deployable systems at the edge of their empire... a similar hull chassis was the basis for GENSIS.

The last of the three looked wary, "But we can't mount it on our ships can we?"

"Not the Daedalus class, the system is too large. The systems from the dreadnought hull can be reproduced but they're still larger than the hulls we have."

It took another round of technical explanation and more up close pictures, "You say we can mass produce these and the AG 3 for Earth." The oldest remarked, and nodded, "Well I guess we'll approach Wayne about the contract." Earth might not have been able to field a fleet to compete with the Goa'uld, but with the right work around they might be able to field something other than massed nuclear missiles. "Now what can you tell us about the Chinese acquisitions from the goa'uld ruins they managed to excavate?"

... Carter suppressed the urge to groan. As if Earth didn't have enough problems China's new 'ancestral' discovery was just another problem to exasperate the situation with their neighbors particularly India, and Japan. Of course if hadn't been China it would have been Russia, what with the latter busy piecing over various mish mash of alien technology. These were of course the priorities of Congress.

-scene break-

Phobos crossed his arms. He couldn't find what in this town was so interesting to Cedric oh sure the raw number of books was impressive, but the topics were so droll. Here he was stuck watching over the guardian of the heart. Hearts plural, the prince of Meridian ground his teeth. It made no sense, more than that it wasn't fair. True he hadn't expected to be given the heart of a world, he wasn't so avaricious, but to give one so frivolously to someone who was so objectively an enemy.

Will sat up, flailed and rolled out of her bed with a solid thump on the floor, "Ow... wait how'd we get back here? How'd I get home?"

Phobos snorted, and she was a clutzy idiot that just made it worse. He really hoped there was actually constructive plan and Sithis just wasn't deciding to make a scene to draw attention from elsewhere. Phobos hated being left out of the loop.

"Ah thats good you're up we were so worried. I mean Sithis left, and you were still out cold," The guardian of wind spared the prince a look, "and Phobos has been here the whole time, and we didn't know when your mom was going to show up, and then you were twisting and turning," Hay-lin ran her hands down her face, "and Cornelia has been trying to explain things to Ellyon." She stopped to take a breath, "and Caleb's knocked out on the couch still. We got him an ice pack though, but I mean what if we need to take him to the hospital, he hit that wall pretty hard."

Phobos rolled his eyes. The man was a rebel, an enemy of the crown... ugh. He wondered where Sithis had gone, but there were countless galaxies out there. The dread father could be anywhere, and unlikely to be anywhere on this miserable planet. He'd taken the time to check in around the house, even watch the television to scry on events that happened elsewhere. Elijiah's city was north of here, filled with rampaging warriors called metahumans, which would be interesting if he could figure out where Dakota was other than some vague idea on a map. For some reason the guardians didn't have maps in the house to navigate to such an interesting place. Well Cedric might now, surely he had a map of the local counties.

"We made sandwiches," Ellyon declared barging into the guardian's room replete with a platter of food. Phobos's sighed well at least that was taken care of Sithis had been clear that the guardian of the heart, and the others would need to eat... it also didn't hurt Phobos was actually rather hungry.

Will eyed the food, and took one, "Yeah my mom is on a business trip hopefully she won't be back until Monday afternoon she had a real-estate conference in Dakota."

Phobos's head snapped to the side, "As in the place on your television?"

"You know what a television is?"

He stared at here, "Why wouldn't I know what a television is?"

"Caleb didn't know what it was, he thought it was a magic, what was it he called it a scrying box?" Will asked, Hay Lin nodded... Phobos stared and shook his head, well it was kind of accurate... maybe just a little...

-scene break-

New York was raining today. Shredder settled back listening to it. He took a moment to enjoy the sound of the rain pattering off the Foot Headquarter's windows, as he relaxed on the mat laid out in the penthouse. His city, it was still loud of course, but today it was just raining. There were still concerns about mutants, and aliens, but for right now it was peaceful

Half way across the world things were calming down. In a decidedly pleasant turn of events the Ronin were being less annoying than usual. That was really the only way to describe them, and the information gathered had proved useful. With regards to that situation Talpa was rather testy about waiting but would go along with his master's wishes without much objection. On the other hand the warlords were quite vocally disagreeable about leaving the Ronins alone. It was just the way of things, especially in the current climate... nothing to be done, but wait.

As for the Foot's little reptilian problem, well the ninja had resumed their nightly vigilante patrols with only minimal incident. They were assisted in this 'endeavor' by some distant relation of O'neill, not surprise given the size of his clan after all, and some other human. The latter was some vigilante in a hockey mask. All that had drifted up to the Kami was the fool was named Jones, and that Hun apparently had a problem with this one.

It was all Raiden needed to know though for now. He had plans to deal with the problem if it got out of hand, but really the bigger problem for the Shredder was Norman Osborn. OsCorp was not something to be underestimated. Not on the legitimate business front, or on the less than legal side of things. Now Norman was barking up Connor's tree, something about mutagenic formula and accelerating the program. It was things like that that but the Shredder on edge. Vigilantes hardly mattered, but a rival toying with those kind of things, and rushing it? Yes. Then of course there was the Justice League, and that Hok'tar school that the news was causing such a fuss over.

The Shredder relaxed his artificial body's muscles loosening, he could deal with Norman that wouldn't be difficult. Then again the man had emphysema so really there wasn't much to deal with either. There was always a trip to Japan he supposed.

Down the avenue in another colossal high rise Norman Osborne was coughing. "More testing he says," The old man growled, "I don't have time for more testing, tell him to move up to human testing." He stopped long enough for another fit of coughs, "Tell Connor's he has until the end of the week to start human testing, or find some one who will start," The business magnate tossed the newspaper in the trash. The reports out of Dakota were promising of course the mutagen worked in ways beyond simple regeneration of tissue. Norman Osborne had been diagnosed as terminal some time ago, but he had promised not to go down without a fight.

Across the street SHIELD special agent Barton adjusted his, totally not reversed engineered from one of Batman's, listening devices as he monitored the OsCorp headquarters with his team of professionals. It wasn't like OsCorp was the only major corporation SHIELD watched, they just happened to be at the top of the list.

-scene break-

Sithis eyed the display of the fleet mildly irritated at the distraction. Every so often one of the Daedra would get out of hand preparing to spark a war. Sithis was tied to the very concept of death by the arcane workings that had transformed the Aedra and Daedra into what they were in this era. He was bluntly death itself given form. The master of Death, and well that had consequences. There were others who'd undertaken similar rituals but none so far as he. For all its benefits the consequences of being death strained his hold on the material plane during galactic wars.

A war between the Daedra, or worse a war between the Aedra and Daedra would kill trillions of people in the span of a few years. The goa'uld stared at the masses of humans on Earth unknowing that the whole population of the planet was insignificant to the Ayelied arcologies which wars would destroy when they came. "Lucien," The listener bowed.

"My lord?" He'd been in the brotherhood for thousands of years, and yet the last hundred years had been a stark contrast to what had been normal for so long. Before he'd died he'd seen Mehunes Dagon, and Akatosh die, not personally of course, but it had happened during his mortal lifetime. He had the same uneasy vibe about this coming era.

Sithis turned, "Yes chances are your fears are not unfounded." At some point very soon there would be a great upset in the balance. "This era is dying, and worse still the gods both great and small grow restless. In the end it was bound to happen, it is why regardless of what happens others crops cannot be left untended."

"What are your orders?" Lucien had lived a long life, and while not even close to being amongst the oldest of the brotherhood he was considerably old by human standards even within the standards of the fraternity. The petty skirmishes of the goa'uld meant little if the fleets of the Daedra went to war.

Sithis was silent, and his fingers moved across the console. Earth appeared, "Terra was just a tiny backwards world, a curiosity at the end of the empire. Alterran focus on the world fell away when they fled this galaxy to others. There are still lines of Alterran blood there, and that blood is the key to access to technology." The genetic markers of the ancients was irrelevant to the Aedra and Daedra, who possessed it already, but for the goa'uld, or humans or countless others it was the key to unlocking massive caches of weapons that even now could tip the scale's in their wars. "Take Mephisto with you and join forces with Tepes,"

The goa'uld and humans weren't the only ones who were after ancient technology. That much was true, but even if other half breeds and monsters could use the systems it was not normally an issue. Provoking an attack on the Daedra could not be permitted, because it would let things loose on this galaxy that were best kept tucked away at least for a little while longer. Lucien departed his new mission in hand.

Sithis stared at the evening star, and let the moon keep him company. He'd had worlds laid at his feet. The era was dying there would be no more peace soon, just a storm of bloodshed.

-scene break-

Gotham was pretty busy. The batcave was a mass of constantly running computers monitoring transmissions from all over, tracking shipments, and running down information. Wayne Industries had been brought in for a massive energy weapon the US wanted to mounted to build on the Freedom Star. If Earth hadn't been threatened by consecutive alien invasions, including one that SHIELD told him just recently was soon to happen he'd never have considered building these kind of systems. They were evident weapons of mass destruction, but after the Thanagarian invasion there was not much choice. The other invasions had only hammered that home.

Ace plodded up the large chair Bruce occupied staring at the screen. Between SHIELD and the rash of metahuman disturbances the Justice League was having trouble coping with its current staff. Certainly outside of a few major natural disasters the League had always been focused on America, a result of the first 7, and then Europe. The roster on paper said there were 50+ members in the league, but not everyone could be on call or patrolling. Add to the fact response times weren't instantaneous, well the League was fairly short handed most days.

"You should consider growing your hair out," Talia commented to Galatea setting the brush aside, "give it time to lengthen up it'll-"

The kryptonian rolled her eyes, "I don't want to look like supergirl 22." and adjusted the tablet computer, "besides we've got more important stuff like your dad screwing around in Springfield, and those anomalous energy signatures coming out of New York. We can worry about how I look in a business suit when we've got breathing room."

"Ra's maneuvering is an issue," Bruce rumbled, unfortunately the league couldn't spare the investigation assets to look into whether there was anything immediately maniacal about Ra's investments in the town. The League couldn't really afford bad publicity at the moment. "Where are we that?"

Now it was Talia's turn to roll her eyes, "Well beloved besides that my father has completely and utterly subverted the town's government, economy, and has his own pet senator from the town there is nothing to say." She shrugged, "All I know is that involves a new avenue for the league something involving militia training, and technology development, and," There was a pause, "father knows there is an alien attack coming and all I've gotten out of him is the vague phrase that the cobra will rise." If that wasn't classic Ra's al ghul phrasing...still yet another alien invasion they were yearly, and at times almost seasonal affairs these days.

"So do we know anything about the new aliens besides Odin apparently snatched up an Army Colonel to deliver the warning personally," Galatea asked. Sure there were plenty of advantages to getting paid with high energy weapons at Wayne Industries High Energy Science Lab but some details about the enemy would be nice. "or that the military is stockpiling energy weapons from both us and Luthor Corp by the bushel."

Bruce tapped a couple of keys, and brought up the production manifest. Fox had warned him about this, still it was a nice padding to both R&D and the general bottom line. Of course refusing wasn't really an option either. "The weapons might not be the biggest issue, their ordering of high end composites and armor materials has also increased by massive degree," Over 1200% since last quarter's order. The whole issue with gods, aliens and other dimensions though might have been the excuse, and real reason, but those kind of orders didn't make it any less concerning. "SHIELD is preparing for a war. That is fairly obvious."

"Wayne Industries, back during the 40s, was one of the primary suppliers of the Strategic Science Reserve."

He nodded, he'd known that. Wayne Industries wasn't the only one. Luthor Corp hadn't been around then, but Stark Industries had. Luthor Corp had only gotten its break during the cold war under Lex's father, but Stark had slipped off since Howard Stark had died.

-scene break-

-Chapter Conclusion-

Helltanz's Notes: The Tauri and the Goa'uld are about to start their own build up. The System Lords are preparing to take the rest of the galaxy, the Aschen are in trouble and the Tok'ra won't be much better because of limited numbers.


	37. Chapter 37 Armaments II

-Chapter begin-

DC lacked the industrial base of Gotham, but made up for it with nearby proximity of other critical east coast systems. Ever since the Thanagarian invasion the US had dusted off what had been considered outdated Cold War Era Initiatives, drawn in all their organizations, and made plans to better protect the east coast. This though was the first major Pentagon meeting of the UNSC's leaders. "Mr. President," The secret service agent chimed, "The Vice President Kinsey, General O'neill, General Hammond, and the Joint chiefs of Staff of staff are already in the bunker." He announced, sliding a key card across the reader opening the hemetically sealed door. The leaders of China, the UK, France, and Russia were already being transfered down the Pentagon's secure access descent tunnel.

The system had been expanded using a slight modification of the Tok'ra's tunnelling crystal technology, and built in modular components. It was designed to survive a ha'tak's alpha strike on DC if it came to that. "What is the state of our defenses? "I understand the first flight of F 303 is supposed to be ready for operations."

"Yes sir, 3rd SFW is operational and overhead." The Air Force chief of staff responded, "They're operating our crash production model of the new aero-space strike fighter." It'd taken weeks to get Wayne to start production on the engines, when production would have taken months (years even) to get started if they'd gone to Lockheed Martin. "The shield around the bunker can be deployed as well if we need it."

The president nodded, taking a seat at the head of the table, "Yes thats good. Thats good general just keep our forces on standby." The warning of a Goa'uld strike should be enough to defend the east coast long enough to reinforce defenses, but not enough to protect civilians. "Well have we learned anything new-"

The four other world leaders entered the room. "So this is the new war room, bit drab, but I'd say if we have to defend the planet here would be were we could do it," The Prime Minister remarked looking around. The bunker complex was so much more, faced with annual invasions the descision had been to adapt and the necessity of being able to direct and command troops would be as important as ever. "I understand that this meeting was prompted by something to do with aliens, and you're moving forward with a path towards disclosure."

"It has been decided by the United States Executive Branch to reveal the Stargate Program," the president announced formally to the other leader. "As well as the existence of the Goa'uld and the Asgard, and the other races, including the Ancients."

Taking a moment to get seated France's president looked around "Which ones, we seem to have a lot of aliens, the Asgard and the goa'uld have been in the public eye as it were," He frowned, "It was obvious with the threats of invasion disclosure would have to be done at some point."

"Well I imagine we'll have to cover all of them eventually, but the real issue is protecting earth from extraterrestrial threats," Kinsey took a sip of his water, "Lets be honest the French have never been team plays when it came to the cold war, and we're supposed to assume you'll play ball as opposed to running off on your own."

The president of the United States cleared his throat, loudly, "The treaty stipulates the USAF has to maintain trusteeship of the gate, but as the Admirals have pointed out says nothing about a fleet being built. "Now the vice president isn't entirely wrong in his concerns," but the president continued, "the fact is its high time this was made public. Yes the United States Air Force will continue, as per the treaty will continue to hold trusteeship and continue running operations through the stargate." He stated. "But that's not the only fact we are here to address, as I am sure some of your nations noticed a large number of the older warships have suddenly been decommissioned." He commented, "the fact is our fleet of space ships is going to be expanded."

The Chinese president scowled, he intelligence department had been run ragged by the last year and a half of hard work, "We are to assume the US Space Command expansions has something to do with this."

"The fact is we need those troops elsewhere." Hayes responded, "we are proposing a massive multilateral build up of ships, as of yesterday there are twenty six Ha'tak all upgraded and split between the USN and the USAF, also we have three Prometheus class which have been modified with An-" the president paused, looked down at the briefing packet, "Alteran derived shields and hyperspace engines," He gestured for the Air Force chief of staff to take over.

He shuffled a handful of papers, "We have just under forty ships, why is nothing in comparison to the fleet of well anybody of importance," he commented, "In two months we intend to set down the first of a new class of warship our first battleship, the Atlas-class," Which was really only possible because of a mix of Asgard help on the side, captured goa'uld technology, and some useful ancient ruins that were being repurposed. Without those gains it would have been impossible to even consider something like the Atlas, still it was their best choice to demonstrate to Congress it could be done.

"Why exactly are you telling us this?" inquired the French president, slightly miffed at Kinsey, given especially his policies that might have been considered contrary to American ones in the last few years.

It wasn't unknown that inside of congress there were pressures to expand not simply space prescence but to add extrasolar territories."President Chirac we intend, well as every one I am sure is aware Earth is becoming overpopulated and resources are limited. We have a chance to relieve that burden, but we do need defense to defend our assets. I won't lie, these ships will be used to defend American interests," he stated firmly, "however should the need arise they will defend this planet, that is what the stargate program was intended for."

"You intend to tip the balance of power in your favor," snarled the Chinese president, "And you knew of this." He growled to the Russian President jabbing a finger.

The Russian president shrugged, "I have been apprised that it is not simply aliens that might attack us. My colonel had briefed me about a hostile human civilization known as the Aschen, and they are technologically advanced, quite frankly they are if reports are correct a danger to earth. It why Russia has begun the construction of our version of the Prometheus-class vessels."

"Well yes, but there is the more pressing issue elsewhere," The president had already grown tired of seeing these 'new ships', the warning by their very existence being that the Ancients might be returning to their galaxy, "These new ships belong to the race that constructed the stargate network and the only thing we've ever seen that could hope to match them belong to the Asgard." He paused for a moment, "These ships dwarf in power anything we can hope to field, and we only can hope they're peaceful. There are however hostile powers out there, threats have been made against earth that we have to prepare for." A collection of packets were distributed the front of which were embalzoned with the SHIELD crest. "The Asgard have warned about another threat.

-scene break-

While the threat of alien invasion was discussed by world leaders Hermione, and a smattering of others poured over old books. The muggleborn would haved liked to have been pouring over the pictures of the massive stone that had been deposited in Colorado, but Dumbledore considered this a more pressing priority. Myths were so hard to figure what was accurate, and what just had an inkling of truth.

Within the context of the Old God myths places like Stonehenge, and Glastonbury Tor didn't make sense, but then there were wizarding accounts that weren't found in any muggle lore. "Alright well from what Bill's managed to piece together Ra was banished from Earth by the Ancient gods of the sky." The inscriptions, and hieroglyphic records weren't especially clear, "which we've dated to roughly the same timeframe as Lilith's ruins are from," Give or take a few centuries, but in the context that wasn't nearly as a bad as it sounded. Wizards couldn't even agree on their, own, origins, and there had to be something more to it than just evolution.

"Well..." Bill took a moment to stall for time, to put things together, and organize the pictures he'd taken of the hieroglyphics. It was lucky they had these seeing as the Lilith site had been over run, and they didn't risk going back there, "there is too much one side of the globe says one thing, ancient ruins tell another story, and the ancient greeks say another."

It was maddening Hermione knew that much, there were too many competing stories, "What if we narrow things downs. Moody knows something, and Templar means Knight of the Temple, and Lilith I would have thought, that anything related to her would have been found quite a ways east."

"So ask Moody, and completely shift our research sites east? We can ask Moody, but its Egyptian sites that have all the attention," Bill said shaking his head, "I mean we could maybe get support for some Greek research, but ancient egyptian wizards are the main focus." Never mind that the wizarding world was spooked to hell after the disturbance of magic. Then there was Voldemort to consider who was doing his own research on ancient wizards, and there was no telling how much Snape had actually fed back to the Dark Lord. "Asking Moody is one thing but trying to find evidence of yet another group of ancient gods without evidence to start with isn't going to get us anywhere."

There was a muffled growl from the door, "And what," Moody dropped a bunch of musty old leather bound tomes on the table, "Do you want to ask old mad eye about?" Seeing the lack of forthcoming questions he snorted, "Dumbledore wants me to look more into the Kandrakhar matter, and thats one thing the Aedra have never been particularly forthcoming about," Not that the old gods were forthcoming about a lot of things, but that couldn't really be helped.

Hermione reached for one of the new books, "Well what Temple, its not the Temple of Solomon obviously, but still you're a templar." Compared to a lot of wizards, Bill being the notable other exception, Moody wore a lot of trinkets and gadgets so when he pulled one out it wasn't all the a suprise when the red, maybe it was ruby, triangle started glowing.

"This is the Temple of Solomon," There was a whoosh of energy and an image formed, "Its just not what the muggles think, nor has the main complex destroyed." Hermione realized where she'd seen the style of building before, it was similiar (though with additions) to the Lilith structure that the soldiers had come storming into. "Protecting it protects the whole human race, so whats muggles see is only what the wards don't warp their perception of." Moody paused, "It might also be our only recourse for what Kandrkhar is, and what its heart it that the yanks, and the department of mysteries won't have access to."

Moody was always warning about dangerous artificats of magic, but Dumbledore agreed in this case, even if he was intrigued. Not that Hermione wasn't intrigued by something that could repulse whatever the cause of that magical disturbance had been, because she was. All of this though was new, and what they did know didn't seem to bode particularly well. She opened one of the books to the marked page, half wondering if it was going to start screaming at here, "Ares's armor?" It looked like what had been shown on her parent's television.

"Its as good of place as any to start, and if we can find it before Voldemort all the better." Moody growled irritably. Magic was a sensitive thing, and it made sense for Voldemort to want to know about whatever had nearly paralyzed him in agony.

-scene break-

An hour ago he'd been deep within his own domain, so far within his own borders that few to nothing could have hoped to reach him tucked away in the void. Time was counting down. Jyggalag was the second strongest of the Daedra, especially as he drew power from the very order of nature and his strength was returning quickly. Even if the remaining Ori thought to strike now against other galaxies it wouldn't prevent the march from beginning. Soon, even from the perspective of a lesser vampire, to him it would like an instant.

Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on one's positions, Mephala considered it likely the Ori would interfere. It was unfortunate that she tended to be right on these things. In a few centuries they would likely be at war with the Ori, which would be irritating if nothing else.

It mattered little for the moment though, the dark god mused, if it happened it did. It would be funny though, if the Ori attacked then well the Aedra and Daedra would ally against their common foe. Sithis longed for the age of Dreams, but reminscing served little purpose now.

"So? You just going to sit there?"

... impertinent children, still useful, and more to the point they had the honor of calling one of his chosen friend, and calling Arkay's chosen teacher. "I was considering such yes," He answered glibly looking over the area. Constantinos was on the grounds surounding the estate walking them even now, apparently there was some issue with the news people at the gate. Nosy rumor mongering vermin that they were, still even in the days of the Ayelied they had served a purpose... besides Mara's insufferable taste for rumors.

"Right," The blonde rolled her eyes, "So is Constantinos going to kill Duncan?"

He quirked an eyebrow, "I do not know this human, why would Constantinos take the time to kill him?"

"He's kind of a prick."

... yes because Constantinos took the time to slay every annoying mortal he ran across, goodness as if that would happen. "If that is all the sinning Duncan has committed then I should doubt Constaninos will spare the time on it." Killing a man was a bit more indepth, was to be a bit more indepth than just the act. Anything less was Mehunes's folly, and everyone knew what that resulted of. "There are less grievous punishments for arrogance that hardly should involve me." Sithis exhaled sharply as a plume of sulfur rippled through the air. Heat burned within his veins, as the first signs of the explosion reached, and the sounds of gunfire came.

Humans, on this world, primarily relied on internal combustion engines to power their vehicles which were fuelled with natural 'fossil fuels', as opposed to some synthetically created system he supposed. Sithis knew a fair amount about the system scientifically speaking. He knew it was primitive, but despite this that Arkay's chosen was fond of them (particular old ones), and that his own chosen desired such a craft to get around.

What Constaninos knew was nothing new at all. Getting impaled sucked to use modern turn of phrase. "Dude, dude are you okay?"

"I am fine," He hand burned blue white and the street lamp turned red, orange, and then melted away pooling at his feet, and he was able to pool himself free. The teenager stared slackjawed as the wound closed.

"You're not a mutant, that giant robot completely ignored you."  
"I am a priest of the all father, and today is not the day he calls me away from here." Constaninos stated pulling a shard of glass from his face. The robot was called a sentinel, he knew that, and he knew that they were reasonably armed. That the war machine could have been a potent tool to defend against the goa'uld. He also knew this machine would be scrap metal. Seeing the gaping Constantinos shook it off, and looked around. The machines target would be the Xavier estate a fruitless attack, only to draw the ire of gods.

The high schooler found his tongue at last, "So what do we do? I mean it doesn't care about collateral damage, and its running amok."

Pulling Duncan out from under his car was easy enough, though his two friends would surely have managed it after a few minutes of work on their own. No, the real issue was the flitting about provoking the robot that 'Shadowcat' was doing. So Constantinos being practical elected to simply free from his vehicle a weapon, and shoot the robot.

"Is that legal?" Duncan stopped for a moment, "Actually fuck legal, where do I get one? The quarterback asked.

"The Maharis Armory," Constantinos adjusted the weapon against his shoulder.

"Is that in Europe?"

"No, its on a planet called Halcyon in the Autumnus sector."

"So they ship to Earth right?" Duncan Mathews looked at his friend, "Its a completely valid question in this scenario we're being attacked by giant robots. Well okay the mutants are getting attacks and those things don't care who gets caught in the cross fire. I kind of want a gun now, just saying."

The other foot ball player shrugged, "Well when you put it that way kind of hard to disagree."

"As to answer your question about legality, yes it is legal, being that it was manufactured six hundred years ago."

Katie popped down, "uh Kurt went to get help, though we might not need it, I guess." She looked around, first to the smoldering sentinel robot and then to the energy weapon. "What is that?"  
"Its antique apparently," One of the foot ball players interjected.

Shadowcat rolled her eyes, "Right, of course it is," Because Constantinos didn't seem to own anything important that was less than a half century old, which didn't make any sense, but whatever now was totally not the time she supposed. "So what should do about the giant robot? Cause gotta tell you I don't want to deal with the end of the world, I mean you know this why we don't get to go to the big apple any more."

-scene break-

Meanwhile in New York City Oroku Saki was busy doing ninja stuff, and by ninja stuff he was spying on Talpa's progress on making up for the debacle that had happened long ago. Shredder still wasn't quite up to speed on the whole Armors issue. He did however understand that Hariel's betrayal, being the first and only of its kind, was a big deal.

Still Talpa had recovered the bulk components for Hariel's magical armor, fifty five percent, and it didn't look like he'd be recovering the rest for a while. Raiden might have been slightly irritated by the lack of progress, but well he seemed content to let the matter lay. It was also part of the reason Oroku Saki was looking into it instead of watching Oscorp like a hawk. If he could recover the remaining armors it would be a major politcal windfall against Talpa.

Kaos might have been an enemy, but the human ronin were just that. Human, and masterless samurai, they could be turned. If they could be turned the formidable magic of the armors would be useful... it helped Talpa had made a terrible first impression of the humans.

The leader of the foot looked over the fog covered docks. Hariel his actions were ...supposedly could be forgiven, because Raiden himself could understand the reason, how could the god not, even Sithis the very embodiment of death could understand. Hariel was worth it, the Shinto Kami had admitted; yes he'd give him a last chance. That was the kind of thing that seriously annoyed the Shredder though. Still to finish recovering the nine armors, one sacred gem, well three technically, one for each level, would be politically advantageous.

Naturally about this time univited guests decided to show up. "Wow, you don't have to put that on seriously you don't have to do that." Cassey half shouted prompting the reptillians to facepalm, so much for the stealth aspect of the mission.

"Turtles," The shredder slipped his prongs on, contemplating whether he could reach his sword before they could close the distance between them. "To what do I owe this unexpected intrusion into my home?"

The human vigilante looked to his friends, made an 'I got this guys' gesture, and started talking, "look I know we don't always get along, but uh you know Earth's going to be attack so we gotta put our differences aside, and uh you know work together to save the day."

"What Cassey is- okay there is an alien attack coming on Earth." It looked like the Turtle was going to be physically ill, "Look we're gonna neeed your help, okay there I said it." Michaelango remarked, "So can we put the weapon down, and talk about this?"

The shredder took his seat again, "I'm listening. Tell me of this supposed attack."  
"Ok Donatello has acess to a bunch of alien technology, and ah I'll just let him explain."

Oroku made a wide sweeping gesture to be seated at the low table, and the tech savvy Turtle pulled a device from his belt, slowly. "Now I've been monitoring a lot of the old Umtrom systems, and they keep track of things in the local region of space." The Umtrom had had a fairly advanced understanding of stealth systems, their cloaking technology vastly outstripped Goa'uld sensor abilities, which was why the sensor network had never been detected. "and I've got access to in general a lot of their systems. What I've found is that there is an alien fleet approaching earth and well they're not going to be friendly."

"Earth has its own fleet, an invasion would provoke a battle." The Shredder remarked accepting the device and turning it on. "I should assume your concern is that the defenses will fail, that they will be insufficent."

Donatello ground his teeth, "I don't think they're going to be fast enough. I've been monitoring the US Space Fleet, they haven't intercepted the alien fleet yet. I think the aliens are going to invade, and that we're going to have to throw them off. Whether that means we have to hold the aliens off long enough for Earth's ships to get here, or whatever."

"I see," Oroku Saki activated the device, "How familiar are you with the Umtrom's biogenetic research, are you familiar with OsCorp or Alva perhaps?"

Leonardo looked at him funny, "Yeah we know who both of those are, OsCorp is in New York whats that got to do with anything?"

"Everything. The metahuman 'bang babies'," and how he loathed that coined phrase, "are not so different from you. Alva, Parker, Connor, Osborne, and others they all profitted, and continue to alien technology from the Umtrom."

Raphael snorted, and was half way through asking what did that matter when Donatello poised the question, "What about Stark, they're a major tech firm?"

"What has Stark done since Howard died other than make weapons. His," Howard Stark's "heir drinks, and whores about ocassionally making some new thing. Stark doesn't matter." Which would be a hilarious comment in hindsight, in a few years irrelevant would be the last thing one would think when talking about Stark Industries, and Tony Stark. "These invaders well Alva will rally defenders to help the planet in the face of them.."

The leader of the four looked hopeful, "Your serious you're talking about allies we can work with thats great." Leonardo had only agreed that this was necessary, because there hadn't been any choice in the matter. They could have rushed off to try and get the Justice League to help, but the Justice League was always about trying to save everywhere. "Yeah ok, I get where your going with this, so what do we do?"

"What preparations have you made so far?"

-Chapter Conclusion-


	38. Chapter 38 Armaments III

-scene break-

Percy White was a difficult man, most of his coworkers in short thought he was an asshole. This reputation was not unjustified, but Percy was good at his job. 'Mr. Management' was not the nickname men whispered behind his back for no reason. Percy did a good job of organizing things, which was why when SHIELD had warned of the attack against Earth he'd stepped up efforts here in Dakota, and was why he was here himself.

"So what is it you do?"

He laughed, "Well I do a lot of things son, but these days its mostly away from the frontlines." Once upon a time Percy had been the trigger man, but those days were long and one, and been a lifetime ago. Percy wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty, or shoot someone, and would die before betraying his beliefs, but the days of dealing with KGB illegals was a long time gone. "What you do if I told you to prepare for an alien invasion?"  
"I'd go see Gear, definitely," Static paused to think, "Alva too, and maybe even Elijiah?" He didn't seem so sure about the last one, "Is that whats up?"

The NID spook nodded, "It is whats up," He'd yet to have been introduced to the 'infamous' Elijiah he'd heard so much about, but he gotten a description... though the original 'big black batman with a sword' hadn't been much help, nor was big black preacher man (with a sword) either for that matter but it gave him something to work with. The emphasis on the sword alone was good intel, swords were distinctive, because any man could pick up a knife and learn how to use it. Elijiah had skill, skill enough to kill Jaffa with swords during the invasion, and that made the NID keep an eye out for him. "I suppose that would be a good plan."

"I guess I'd talk to Long Shadow." Static remarked.

That was good, "Gear and Alva for tech," Percy remarked, and at Static's confirmation he continued, "I suppose given Elijiah's skill set you could go for him for training." tech too, Static chimed in, "well I suppose, Long Shadow for training you could reach out for help."

"Yeah I could do that," Virgil wasn't stupid. The government man wanted something, that'd been clear when weeks ago he'd asked him 'What do you know about the Nazis, son?' Percy knew plenty of interesting things though, "So whats the threat?"

Percy didn't even like his answer, "Well we don't know, and yes thats the truth. All we know is that an attack is coming, and thats all I can tell you."

"So the whole question of what would you do was what?"

The NID man sipped his lemonade, "To see if you had any good ideas, and make sure you had time to prepare. Basically you need to prepare whatever you think is necessary, and thats all I've got at this point." Which very much annoyed the intelligence officer, how was he supposed to help defend the planet, when they didn't even know what they were supposed to be defending it from. "We're pretty certain its not the Thanagarians."

"Well thats a relief." Static grunted sarcastically. "So what stockpile anti giant robot missiles," The other man nodded, and responded with it 'it certainly couldn't hurt'.

-scene break-

The matter of supplies had become a major concern for the Jaffa rebellion, so much so that it frequently became a point of contention when the council met. It didn't help that the Tauri had used their ships to transfer thousands and thousands of tons of material to their shipbuilding world the central piece of which was ancient technology.

The Tauri colonel in charge of their 'army engineers', which was something the Jaffa did not quite get, was notably tight lipped about the acquisition. The concept of an engineer wasn't lost on them, but O'neill was of the 'air force', which assumed he would have been a skilled glider pilot or perhaps an alkesh pilot, but the air force were the main ones through the gate, followed by the marines of SG 4, who should have been stationed aboard Tauri starships to keep the men in line from a Jaffa understanding. That however was a matter for another time.

"The Tauri system is massive, they have taken a part two of the dry dock assemblies meant for Ha'tak construction, and are intent to butcher a third."

Teal'c nodded, "This is true, but the Tauri are convinced-"  
"Of course the Tauri are convinced they are always convinced their way is best." Gerak snapped, "it is not the point why dissassemble three to make just one shipyard it is a waste. Better to make three ships than just one this is a simple fact."

Master Bra'tac, thankfully, took the moment to step in, "Enough Gerak the Tauri have been good hosts, and while it does seem strange they're efforts may yet pay off." He had been on the planet when the Tauri had carefully lowed the, damaged, Ancient facility down to the surface of the planet into its berth. The berth itself had drawn great attention from the Jaffa as it had been excavated with a mix of crystal technology, and conventional Tauri digging machines.

The berth as it existed now was still under, its final stages of, construction. It was here that the Atlas would be built. One day, human (Earth) built, orbital shipyards might be built around earth but for the time being the only option was to use appropriated alien systems in conjunction with human systems.

The Atlas in a way a rehashing of the prometheus, not in hull design, but in general idea. It incorporated numerous alien technologies. Unlike the Prometheus though the Atlas was significantly larger because that was the only it could challenge a Ha'tak short of throwing dozens of naquadah enhanced nuclear missiles at it. Unfortunately nuclear weapons were only effective at close range, so the US was looking for other options.

"The Tok'ra have already arrived," IF the Jaffa had had issues with the ship building thing, the Tok'ra were raising cane over the whole issue... there was the ill defined 'ready for such responsibility', which was steadily grating on the command, and regular soldiers. "We should put off this matter for the time being."

The Tauri ship building facility had been really expanded. The issue though, for the humans, was staffing the place. People had to be vetted for clearance, and had to be up for a prolonged deployment with little to no communication with their families given the realities of distance between the world and Earth. It'd been that particular problem that had slowed down base expansions, and justifying to congress expanding the roster of the armed forces to train thousands of new personnel. Of course the resultant panic from the yearly alien invasion got congress to pass an expedited improved defense budget, which was nice. It was however one of the reasons command didn't particularly care for aliens being allowed on post, more the Tok'ra than the jaffa but the issues were still present. It turned out people who could successfully deal with Afghani National Police, and the like, tended to be able to put up with the Tokra's bs a hell of a lot better than fresh from basic and AIT troops.

"Well good you're all here," The engineering expert remarked, as a civilian/ex military/contractor he didn't have to stomach quite as much bullshit, as the line guys, "the general is on his way up so we're about to start." He'd already read his briefing packet, as evidenced by the open jacket and flipped through pages. Even so he went back to rereading it.

The general in charge of the Engineers didn't know how the Air Force put up with the paternalistic bullshit the Tok'ra spewed, because he'd gotten about sick of it a few weeks in. "We've all been over the issue with the dry docks. The thing is we don't need to produce Ha'tak, and barring a major knock down drag out fight won't need to repair our existing ones. What we do need are those systems for ship construction." Earth wasn't going to build Ha'tak, the hull design could be useful there was no denying that, but it wasn't nearly as effecient as a dedicated warship. God knew that the Admiralty would have killed for Sigfridr or Varyag class ships from the Asgard in place of the Ha'tak they had, and that was even accounting for the fact that neither ship really did the whole 'carrier' thing. "What I do need is for you," and much as he wanted to call them idiots didnt', "to stop antagonizing my tech personnel. I get the Tok'ra have some special relationship with the air force, and thats fine, but we're not the Air Force."

"I do not believe I'm aware of any particular issues between the Tok'ra and Tauri personnel." Perseus's lap dog remarked.

"Well that might just be the problem since you just got here," The contractor chimed in, "General if I may," The brigadier waved him on, "whats going to end up happening is bluntly one of your guys is going to get shot." One of the Jaffa chortled, "If this was Khandar he'd just end up with a grenade in his tent, but its not you can't go around pissing off an entire platoon, there are already morale consequences." He pushed a folder over highlighting a myriad of reported incidents, and naturally the Tokra High Council appointed investigate blamed the Tauri people... big surprise there.

There was very little surprise, amongst the base personel, when Corporal Mathew Cole, and Sargeant Tomas Grant shot and killed a Tok'ra eight days later. It was however still kind of a big deal even though everyone knew it was coming.

-scene break-

The alliance between Heru'ur and Cronus had been very useful to both parties. Heru'ur was able to prioritize mobile armor development while Cronus focused on refining anti ship guns, and together the two were able to unleash their armies on their enemies. The end of the war with Anubis, and the resulting sharing of his technology (or at least part of it) also proved very useful to their combined interests. In short Heru'ur had a very sweet gig at the moment, which almost made up for the fact he had no idea where to look for his father. He also had one other issue that being Ptah's return, which wouldn't normally have bothered him.

"The arrangement of our forces is advantageous," Heru'ur growled, "however the enemy has benefitted from the diffusion of new technology, and" He slammed his fist onto the console, "I strongly suspect Baal is divering forces through Ptah's territory to assist our enemy." His uncle was also unlikely to stop Baal so long as Baal didn't attack his holdings, which Baal was unlikely to do.

In short there was very little they could do, and Cronus admitted as much. "What of our reserve forces in the area?" He asked gesturing around a cluster of stars, "If we could prove Baal's interference it could be advantageous." On the other hand if this conflict was dragged out it would force the intercession of the more meddlesom members of the council

"I would much prefer to smash Baal's raiders in battle," Heru'ur grunted, impatiently eying the strategic map, "but you are correct that solution would be more expedient."

Cronus nodded, he too would have preferred a more decisive outcome, but it could not be helped. As it was Baal had inheiritted Anubis's fleet, and unless Sokar went to war against him there would be little opportunity for a conflict that was strategically friendly to their fleet's movement. No any war against Baal would have to wait until after a decisive victory, and after their fleet numbers were sufficent. The ships Baal had inheiritted from Anubis were well armed, and the most prudent solution would be to construct similiar vessels. As it was the Ha'tak while still relevant in combat was showing its age. Cronus did admit the reintroduction of old siege ships and the Cheops class ships was innovative for those who were stretched thin of resources otherwise. However as truly worthy of the title system lord more potent solutions were required of him, and Heru'ur as well. The success of Heru'ur's mobile armors over vast numbers of death gliders proved this, even if the modernized Cheops remained a viable ship for screening them. It was an unfortunate fact that grated on his young ally's nerves. There could be no helping it.

Their shared war room painted a bleak picture of the galaxy. What should have been a swift easily won expansion had bogged down, and the galaxy itself wasn't any better. For all the claims of peace between the ranks of the system lords there wasn't any it was just a lie that the system lords spoke of to maintain the illusion of a polite fiction. By Earth's standards Cronus, and Heru'ur would have been considered war mongerers, and even by Goa'uld standards were considered aggressive expansionists. They did inspite of this have moments of pragmatism.

Their alliance gave them time to build up. These skirmishes gave them time to blood their troops, and work out the kinks in designs. Most importantly though it gave them a corridor to expand their empire's to attack more wealthy territories. It was likely that why Baal was sending ships to help their enemies.

A map of the galaxy was in many ways a lot like looking at a map of Earth; a political map that was. Geography did play its part, but politics shaped 'national' borders. It was a very simplistic way of looking at a complex situation, but simplifying the situation made things easier to work with. The divisions within goa'uld space, i.e. The bulk of the Milky Way, owed much to Ra's time as supreme system lord. So the map Cronus was looking at hadn't change much from the map he'd looked at two decades ago... the single glaring exception was the lack of Ra... and the new Earth exclusionary zone.

Cronus contemplated maneuvering his forces into position, but more importantly had to consider how Baal was manuerving the Tuat-class ships through the fringes of Ptah's territory. This sole fact complicated the whole war significantly. "We will have to do something swiftly." He didn't particularly care to admit it, but Anubis had made a potent battleship... no doubt all of the back engineered ancient technology present in the design. For all their reinforced heavy guns Cronus's class was a much purer tech design.

"A battle in Ptah's space would be unwise," Heru'ur admitted, crossing his arms over his armor, "my uncle won't care how this plays out. Still if we did get into a fight it might be worth it..." Just to see how Ptah's understanding of ancient technology, and how his ships stacked up to Anubis's designs. It might be worth a fight. "Are the first Lambada class ships ready?

-scene break-

Just as Heru'ur and Cronus were unknowing of the threat against Earth so to were the wizards who comprised the order of the Pheonix, and so to were Voldemort and his inner circle. Voldemort didn't care about of a lot of things. A lot of wizarding traditions had meant very little during his first rise, and well into his second. Religous matters had been a very minor issue, not worth the Dark Lord's time as it were.

Now there had been exceptions rumours of magical artificats of power, that would have been something different... would have been something worth his attention. These days Voldemort had two primary focuses, and they had become so important they'd greatly affected Death Eater operations.

Voldemort was furious over two things. The first had been the incident in France, the beating had been a major blow to his ego. In hindsight it made perfect sense, but a loss was a loss. Even if said loss had been against one of Grindelwald's allies ... who seemed to not have aged at all since the end of the second world war. The second was the massive magical disturbance, which had left him bedridden for its duration.

So in short Rossier, and Snape, and various others were getting run ragged along side their lord thumbing through books, and ancient records and other such looking for answers about the second issue. Snape for once would have prefferred to have been stuck digging old world war II records, but that was 'peon work' apparently. Voldemort needed his competent people working on the more pressing issue. The more pressing issue was a lot more headache inducing.

... maybe when he got back Fletcher would have been passed out in a door or hallway again and he could spend a few minutes kicking him to relieve the pent up frustration. As it was it seemed like every question they managed to answer lead to ten or more fucking extra questions they'd have to answer, and it was driving him up the wall. It seemed like Rossier, and the others were having the same problem.

The owl squawked angrily at him.

Severus looked up... oh joy what did the dark lord want now he wondered, and grudgingly took the letter. The sole redeeming trait about Voldemort was his script was legible... maybe a little too fancy, but not nearly as bad as Dumbledore's loop filled writing. The letter, more of a memo really, was short, and thankfully to the point... and unfortunately confirmed that Voldemort did in fact read Severus's reports. In particular one segment read thusly:

'Recognizing that Dumbledore may have an avenue that may lead us to further answers that might be of some use we want you to review Dumbledore's research into summoning...' it went on from there... well on the plus side at least Moody was out of the country for the time being. God knew that Mad Eye would be positively unsufferable when he found this out.

Then there was the fact that Malfoy, Lucius not Draco, was heading heading the Issue number 1 department and they were busy looking for any possible weapons that Grindelwald's allies might have tucked away. Relaying that news was going to be an issue, but it was also possible it might jog Dumbledore's memory from back then, which could be useful.

-scene break-

Colonel Fury examined the inventory of stored weapons, Will we be ready, and would all of this be enough was the question on everyone's minds. Fury wasn't sure whether they'd be ready the Phase two iniative, even expedited, would take years so chances were that particular program wouldn't be ready in time for this latest alien invasion. Still chances were there would be others. There were always others... there were always going to be others.

SHIELD's mandate was homeland security before homeland security had ever existed. Of SHIELD's focus had always been on less mundane threats, which why Homeland Security had been founded in the first place. DHS didn't care for international elbow rubbing either, which gave SHIELD a chance to grow on its own, and SHIELD had always been on good terms with its British counterparts ever since the days of the Strategic Science Reserve. For the time being SHIELD was just going to have to work with the NID, and Fury could deal with that for the moment.

Fury glanced at the screens around him, the missile grid, FreedomStar, the Daedalus, Promtheus, various Ha'tak, and now Atlas. Billions of dollars expended for planetary defense supplemented by the billions for national defense. There were dozens of other programs running. Initiatives to back engineer Thanagarian shields to create theater scale defenses, or defend cities was just one example of where the money was going. All of this better be worth it, and not just because the bastards in congress would rather spend the money on pork projects in their home states. Still hopefully in the long run the price would be well paid.

"Colonel Fury."  
"General." The one eyed man saluted, "I understand you wanted me to review Wilson's reports." For years the stargate had been the domain of the Air Force so the influx of Army troops hadn't been appreciated. The other one eyed army colonel reports thus far hadn't been favorable.

The NID's combat commander nodded, Percy could have his stealthy assassins, there were something you just had to solve by driving a tank through the other guys door. "Nick I'm not gonna be able to cover you against Ross, not with the Air Force breathing down our necks like it is."

"I understand that general,"

The assurance didn't stop Jones from grounding his teeth in aggravation, "Wilson's troops need to be ready, and you're gonna have to put up with fighter jock's attitude for the time being. Ross has command of the Air Force's F 303 wing," The 3rd Spacefighter Wing wasn't even at full strength yet, and wouldn't be for a while even if Wayne delivered all of the planes tomorrow, "he wants to make this out where he can pull a quarterback run like that'll be the game. We'll settle this on the ground, and that'll ..." The world war two general stopped and started fiddling through his pockets for the cellphone Cadmus had insisted he keep with him, "God damn it. Just look over Wilson and just be ready, you know what to do Colonel. I'll send Lieutant Wallace over here later."

The was a tense salute and the hologram vanished, and Fury was left to the mass of intelligence and data that SHIELD had collected. SHIELD had no choice but to be ready, there was no other option because failure meant death. Fury glanced at one of the SSR initiatives... the Helicarrier well that might not have been practical back in the 70s, but there were other technologies Stark had developed back then for the flying monstrosity that could be applied. They'd certainly be a lot easier than letting loose air launched nukes in the atmosphere for congress to swallow.

"Where are we with the Justice League?" He asked the up until then silent lieutenant. For years since the first seven had founded the League the US had struggled to put together a public face to rival the league, "And for that matter what about reviewing the events of the invasion?" The unspoken question of do we have answers about what could have been done better, and what happened during it didn't need to be voiced.

Two separate files, both exceedingly thick, were laid out. Most of it was information he was already familiar with, but it seemed both had gotten thicker since the last time he'd looked at them. The first dealt with the League, and that was one of the things that grated on the Joint Chiefs, and the officer corp... there were plenty of former soldiers in the League. If that hadn't been an issue for some, then it was the aliens apart of the league. "Sir should I get the Avengers Initiative file from the vault?"

"No thats still shelved for time being." He responded grabbing the second stack of files, and settling behind his desk. He'd deal with the League bullshit later. There was another invasion on the way, and hopefully everyone who'd stood up to fight Anubis would show up to fight whoever these new invaders were. Hyuk and his compatriots hadn't been the only ones during the invasion with clearly ancient, or perhaps ancient derived, weapons, and that made it an interest to all the national security concerns. Then on top of that SHIELD also had to look at all the magical people (and creatures) involved during it. He'd leave the Mars Facility, and whatever other installations that weren't on Earth to Space Command, it was less work for SHIELD's already stretched manpower. "They finally finished processing through the video footage I see," It was a pity they didn't have audio to work with because it was evident that the groups were communicating in video footage. "Do we have the comparison of ballistic reports of the recovered HYDRA weapons we have in stock?" He flipped a page over the offered read out, not a match... that was a mix of good and bad for them.

-scene break-


	39. Chapter 39 Disclosure III

-scene break-

Heru'ur, and Cronus disagreed plenty. Not enough to actually jepoardize their alliance, but enough that the other Goa'uld certainly knew about it... rumour mongering was kind of a thing amongst the many thousand year old living gods. It was just something that couldn't be helped. Rumours also helped with intelligence gathering, for example Cronus's atlas class had managed to out perform Heru'ur's entry into the competition, so Heru'ur was presently sulking... allegedly, that might have just been something the rumour mongers were throwing out to make Heru'ur look like a bitch, which was entirely possible.

Jack looked at the ship. He supposed this was better than the JAG Colonel having to deal with the whole Tok'ra shooting incident. Thank god for the sarcophagus at least. That prevented the incident form being an even bigger pain in the ass. "The president is going to include this picture in his speech?" He rolled his eyes, "I mean you know the public," besides weapon nerds, "they'll probably get confused there are a couple ships called Atlas. Hell we've got one on the roster." The (American) Atlas was due to be laid down in just over a month.

"Press secretary says the design responds well. Its good for grabbing an audience's attention," Davis responded, "they want to keep attention for as long as possible." This wasn't even something the president normally had to cover, but then again this was kind of a first to begin with. "Besides Raiden paints his ships too many different colors it would look tacky."

The general raised an eyebrow, "Tacky, Davis?"

"All due respect sir what would you call it?"  
... he thought about it for a minute, and then nodded. On second thought yes sparky's color scheme from a military perspective was tacky. Tacky was a good way to put it in hindsight. Not that painting your ships bright fucking gold was a whole hell of a lot better; Heru'ur, and the other Egyptian goa'uld. "Alright but what about the ancient ships?"

"We're not showing them," He commented matter-of-fact. It was at the moment considered too much of a security risk. Even with a wide disclosure of information there were plenty of things the US wanted to keep under wraps. The admirals had carefully maneuvered using the treaty langauge to their advantage. The air force had to hold the stargate, so why not make sure responsiblity to ships fell to a more senior service branch, and it pissed some people off.

Both sides agreed though the ancient dreadnought was probably something to keep quiet. Those kind of weapons, or the potential at least were too valuable to let out of US control. The possibility that the ancients might be returning was another reason for upping the work on the ship. All of this was really about politics now. "What has sparky and friends been up to?"

"The System Lords have been cloistered for the last week, that whole skirmish has turned into a serious mess." Right now the word was that Heru'ur, and Cronus were seriously considering kicking Ba'al's teeth in... or trying to at least. At the very least Heru'ur significantly outnumbered Ba'al so it would be pretty messy either way. Then there was Raiden and the Celts, which wasn't going well from the sound of it. O'neill stared at the display, fed in through Asgard sensors across the galaxy the new Tauri Exclusionary Zone was nice, and the Asgard finally were rebuilding their fleet so the protected planets would finally have some real muscle around. That was definitely good news. Still Odin showing up and nicking SHIELD's CO didn't sound like it was a good thing.

"Oh Jack," Special Agent Rogers, stuck his head in, the NID spook had been in and out of the office for the week enough he considered it okay to barge in whenever, "SF called they want to know about you scheduling time on the Barret?"

Davis glanced at him, "What?" Jack demanded from the colonel. He ran a pretty laid back command his officers could come up to him and voice any questions or concerns they had, "I figured it was a good idea not to get rusty." He stopped, "Also I'm got one on lay away," He admitted after a minute, "So about those new ships?"

-scene break-

Olliver Queen wondered how he'd gotten into this mess, as he adjusted his normally concealed collapsible composite constructed bow. The bastard on the other end of the roof was good, and what was worse was it was a voice in his head that had warned him that the other guy had been spying on Oscorp in the first place. It was ... there was a ping of an arrow punching through cheap industrial steel, and Olliver pulled his head back.

Hawkeye adjusted his own bow. SHIELD, like NID Cadmus, and every other government agency had dossiers on the League. They also all heard the same rumors. Most were probably bullshit, sure there were might have been dirty leaguers but it seems a bit far fetched at the moment they'd started cropping up. There had never been rumors about Green Arrow, but then Olliver Queen had been a millionaire, and more to the point Oscorp was old money. Robert Queen, and Norman Osborne had been school chums. The world was a small place, but the most glaring evidence was Osborne had snapped Queen Industries when it had gone on the market, and spent years collecting all the pieces of the company that had been cut up during the sell off.

Green Arrow had been running down leads about the whole 'Old Gods' looming in the void, that had been one of things Stewart had pulled him aside to look into in New York. The Green Lantern corp's home world of Oa had a very interesting origin after all... and well Batman wasn't the only one who could run a gambit. Still he'd figured this was some kind of simple criminal enterprise he'd stumbled in on, now it was looking like he might want to call in back up. There was something more going on here than just some spying on a warehouse. He exhaled, and counted the footsteps the other archer was taking across the roof.

The voice was getting harder to ignore. It had been there ever since that cult raid. 'you're very alike, very much though he's been tweaked a bit by your mortal science' Hircine commented in an interested tone. Vigilantes he'd decided were great fun. This kind of hunting was a good sport, and you could really have interesting vigilantes on industrialized worlds otherwise it was so much easier to remain unnoticed by the masses... not that the Justice League was all that discreet.

Oliver really wished his comm piece hadn't gotten broken in the fight, hopefully... hopefully Stewart or some other League member who was supposed to be in the area would show up. The whole idea of this had been low key reconnaisance he didn't have the arrow supply to keep this up, and was lacking on specialty arrows if this guy was a metahuman. He adjusted the arrow he had notched, and looked over at the angle the HVAC structure made. His own arrow bounced off the curve and the payload opened spraying the area rolling ball berring like objects. He'd actually gotten them from Batman, and just built an arrow capsule to deploy them.

Hawkeye rolled to the side pulling his goggles down to better protect his eyes from the rapidly flashing disorienting LEDs in the little metal ceramic balls. Stupid prima donna super heroes with their damned gadgets... SHIELD R&D never gave him anything nearly as cool. Both archers figured now was time to make a move and ended up forcing each other back to cover. Clint considered pulling his service weapon and just shooting Oliver Queen... the man wore body armor he'd be fine... ish. Then again the repurcussions politically of a government agent shooting a member of the Justice League might be a bit problematic ... never mind the paper work. Fury would have a cow if he shot someone as well connected with Senators as Green Arrow... and an angry Fury was such a pain.

The chance to make a choice passed as the sirens of the NYPD drew closer, but more pressingly was the speeding glowing green glob of energy heading right for the roof. That was one of the Green Lanterns... Stewart definitely. So Agent Barton of SHIELD did the smart thing he hurled a flashbang and rolled off the edge of the roof and onto a fire escape. He called for back up, and extraction as soon as he touched the black top of the asphalt. Oliver Queen he could fight, a Green Lantern though was a little out of his league.

Tony Stark would wake up around noon the next day to people buzzing about the fight that took place on top of an OsCorp building in New York, and he would be intrigued. After all what could possibly interest the league that they were going to snoop around one of his corporate rivals enough that a fight breaks out on the roof top.

-scene break-

Working for Cadmus had its ups and down, Luthor found. Hamilton for example was a world class nuisance, but the man did understand Kryptonian genetics... as well as any human on earth could understand that field. Luthor just wouldn't mention that he'd used the man's research for his own little side project. Not that Krypton was an issue right now... no right now the NID was as a whole preparing for a much larger problem.

"So they're actually going through with it?" General Jones asked, refraining for once from grinding his teeth, "This all seems a bit rushed."

Amanda Waller nodded, "There isn't much choice is there? Not at this stage. The military has managed to swell fleet numbers because of the Goa'uld Civil war and the Tauri Exclusionary Zone that the goa'uld established around earth-"  
"Which is a good thing I'll say,"

The head of Cadmus nodded, "Perhaps so, but it means its harder to keep the secret." The new ships were also being split and modified by two different branches. It was a bad descision from a security perspective, but nothing could be done. It was a political choice, and it didn't matter that the president was an Aif Force vet. He was also the first president to lose nearly an entire Carrier battle group on his watch. The threat of alien invasion was too much, and for an organization like the NID supporting their political backers did have to be mediated by the need to protect America.

Things like the alien ruins, and active alien installations, on Mars were suddenly secondary concerns to the threat of another invasion, the Russians back engineering Thanagarian tech, and the Chinese having working, if outdated examples of goa'uld technology. Those were just the big three issues for the NID in the back of everyone's directives were updates on the Justice League, and SGC. "Disclosure will change global political reality in ways we can't predict," One of the senior analysts commented, it'd be another game changer. It wasn't that the population didn't know about aliens, if that was the issue then it wouldn't be such a big deal... no the matter was trying to put it in perspective just how small Earth was, while preventing a panic.

Lex Luthor, while everyone else chattered around the massive holographic television displays, looked through the copies of requisition forms. Where people like Tony stark had known about aliens Bruce Wayne had been the one on the front line of financing new weapons. Maybe if the other billionaire playboy philanothropist had been read in he would have been the major help but that job fell to Wayne. A part of that grinded on Luthor, not the least bit because when LexCorp had gotten divided up a lot of the stock had been grabbed up by people who would be arguably friendly to the Batman's interest... not that Talia Al Ghul wan't doing a good job as CEO. So Wayne was going to end up with almost a trillion dollars in government defense contracts even though security oversight knew he was Batman. It actually made him, Luthor, wonder if some deal hadn't been cut between Wayne and the Government. A kind of 'I'll throttle back on being batman, and oversee weapons development' deal, because Batman was a whole lot less visible as of late. Something had to be going on.

According to these Wayne had his fingers in everything from aerospace to armor production, and Wayne Energy would be overseeing the decomissioning of the USS Enterprise's nuclear reactor. In the realm beyond the public eye though was where Luthor was really looking. Wayne Aerospace's proprietary surface to orbit systems, with Lex Corp a fading memory, and others out of the way Wayne would be the only Megacorp focusing on comercial space lift. That was a few hundred billion dollars that were all but assured to go to the Gotham playboy... just because he had forked the money out for in house satellite launch capacity back in the 90s.

"Relax Luthor, we're on the same side." Jones grunted, "Besides if Wayne is building stuff for us he can't it to the other guys, your corporate types should understand that." The world war II era super soldier crossed his arms, "its a different age we had the SSR to do that work back then, and Stark, Howard was around, was the big genius. Now its all about money, and less about patriotism. Of course if you run for Senator, we'll be slightly better off won't we." Better off in the since that the NID would have one of 'their own' signing bills. "After all how much of the president's speech is just gonna be smoke and mirrors, and flat out bullshit."

"Relax gentlemen we're not fucked yet. Percy thinks he's got a good chance with that metahuman superhero in the midwest and that'll be a great publicity coup, and he's buddy buddy with Alva apparently." Always nice when a superhero had his own source of income, "We'll also be getting access to those Ancient ruins SHIELD found in Egypt,"

There was a pause, and another analyst's head snapped, "I thought we were gonna have to read the Israeli's into that?"

"We still might," Hopefully after stripping the place to the bed work ... and that was when the alarms started off. "Fuck shut that noise off, tell me we're not being invaded yet?"

Luthor looked down at his 'watch', which was actually a small tablet computer, not unlike the ones Wayne's merry band had integrated into their gloves. The genius gritted his teeth, as he read through the display, "Its that oaf Hamiliton."  
"What, god damn it we can't do this now." The doctor knew they had an immenient threat.

Cadmus gave its scientists a lot leeway. Part of it was to make sure they got results, but also so any unfortunate implications could be concealed from congressional oversight. If the guy who talked to congress didn't know the details it wasn't lying... per se. The last thing Cadmus, or the NID as aa whole, needed waso ne of their 'special cases' embroiling them in a turf war with another intelligence Agency.

"Put that fire out, find out how it got started," The director all but bellowed, "And you two get a team and go get Hamilton do no let him start a pissing match with SHIELD. He gets nowhere near Wayne manor, am I clear?"

General Jones saluted, "Sir, yes sir." He turned, "Wallace Luthor come on. We'll make sure the doc didn't take anything too dangerous and then we'll go after him" The, former, billionaire stared at his back... was he serious... Lex was trying to avoid field work. So much for taking the opportunity to check on project Krypton. If Hamilton had endangered his pet project there was going to be hell to pay. He'd put too much effort into the initiative for that fruitcake to mess it up because he was running half cocked off to Gotham.

-scene break-

While NID's Cadmus directive members were busy with their own problems across the country and snug on the west coast the guardians were settling in after another fight with Nerissa. "So Oa was created like Kandrakhar,"  
"Not precisely no, certainly similiar." Cedric remarked, "Oa was born during the mass of chaos during the war in heaven." He looked up from a much more contemporary book than the one the guardian was pouring over. Where as the massive at least leather-looking bound tomed was at least a few thousand years his books was substantially newer... only been in publication for a few months even. He drifted off, "The universe wasn't like it is today, long ago before the rise of the petty young gods back when the Aedra, and Daedra had been young even there had been tremendous bloodshed. The wars in heaven spanned across the stars, across what you call galaxies." Of course attempting to explain such a vast area, a scale of that size, of that magnitude was quite difficult.

Cedric knew for example Sithis was lying... well not perhaps lying. Concealing the ease with he could have killed Nerissa with something as simple as by breathing perhap... so he could only assume Sithis had some goal in mind for the Guardians. Phobos had likewise come to a similiar conclusion... not that it didn't annoy him any less on realizing such. The possession of one heart vastly increased the magic available to the guardians beyond his own reserves, but entrusting the keeper with a second seemed insane... especially when the guardians were so annoying... and ignorant.. "Oa was born of dyings gods," He grunted, "So like Khandrakar it is a massive font of power," A wellspring of self generating magic, a kind of living place, "its a living world beyond the scale of this one." Phobos commented crossing his arms as he finished healing someone who by all rights should have been his enemy.

Cedric got up and came back with the tea kettle, he'd decided to leave expresso maker off today after the last accident that the Guardians had had with it. It was also why there were using cups that could be safely dropped... he really didn't want to have any more of his good china broken. Not that he couldn't magically repair the damage, but it was the principle. "Your highness Dakota is on the news again," He announced sliding the remote to the prince who snatched it greedily off of the counter top. Will's mother had returned safe, and unharmed from the chaotic city on schedule, and the Prince of Meridian was still interested.

Will leaned her head back and rolled her eyes. The whole situation with Meridian had gotten really fucking weird. Phobos now though was just the lesser evil... well that and Nerissa was a much bigger threat, and not just to earth. Even with Sithis far beyond her she could feel the hints of autumn in the air. Kandrakhar's power stirred from the heart, but it had to compete now for her focus with the aetheric wellspring of another heart. Sithis had warned another such disruption of the Earth's natural flow of magic would have worse consequences for them now. The second heart took time to get used to. The one good thing about all of this was the second heart did a good job evening up the difference in skill. It forced Nerissa to back off for the time being, but the fallen guardian was likely just biding her time and plotting. Which was probably going to make it all the worse when she did strike back.

Phobos cursed angrily when the newscaster stopped, and the picture changed to announce a new breaking story, and then the channel changed. The White House press secretary now dominated every television screen currently attuned to a satellite or cable station, as well a wide array of youtube or other media sites. It was a major undertaking, and in the ensuing days would cause a major outbreak of whining, complaints, and general disturbance amongst generations of Americans.

"My fellow Americans, the President of the United States..." The press secretary stepped aside to allow the President of the United States to take the podium. Unlike countless previous press conferences held in this same wing there was a vital difference. All around the president holographic projectors brought dozens of swirling images to life. Planets, buildings, soldiers, civilians, and what could only be space ships.

Phobos didn't seem surprised, but perhaps more telling was his complete lack of interest. Cedric though was suddenly that much more attentive, and he was normally disdainful of televison. The invasion, the most recent one, had been perpetrated by a rogue alien leader. The goa'uld Anubis had attacked in flagrant violation of intergalactic law. Hayes drew plenty of allegories to the start of world war II.

... except that Earth had been invaded how many times. Still the US would be building its own ships or rather more ships now. What the president was outlying was a massive expansion of the defense budget, and of others. To stimulate the economy to prepare for a war that was raging across the stars. In nearby Malibu Tony Stark spat his double soy chai latte out as the presntation went on, but for Heatherfield the Guardians had other issues.

Phobos face formed into a dismissive half sneer, and the prince rolled his eyes, "He thinks to build a fleet. This era dies, what an oaf. Hircine's armies cross the stars, and Jyyggalag prepares for war no mortal fleet will stop this."

"My prince the -"  
"Be quiet Cedric, I want to hear this oaf make a fool of himself."

Hayes unhearing of all of this, or the countless other comments continued with his prepared speech, addressing a star struck nation. Over a million light years away the Asgard Wotan listened, and he was hardly the only one. Other aliens listened in to the broadcast, other powers, and closer to home so to did others nations.

-scene break-

Where Sithis would normally have not cared he paid attention. In Bayville the scent autumn was stronger than even in Heatherfield. The smell of oak, storm, and fallen leaves radiated as the death god rested a hand on the back of the chair. The difference in saturation was that noticeable. With the god of order awake there was no need to be quite so discreet.

"Whats this going to mean?" Kitty asked no one in particular. She'd asked the same question when Spike and some of the others had moved out west to Dakota.

Constantinos, and one of his brothers waited for someone to answer. Sithis said nothing, and no one could answer, "there is a threat against earth, another invasion." No doubt that when it came there would be more panic and more demands, and pressure for something, anything to be done. The attack that was coming was nothing, so long as neither side did anything to escalate it.

"We should do something then." Scott nearly shouted, "i mean you know about it. You have ships you could do something."

"Do not misunderstand your place in the scheme of things," Sithis warned, "a billion worlds like this one are nothing to me. I have seen a billion years come and go, a simple world like this doesn't stir me to action any more. Certainly not when interfering without cause would spark greater chaos and bloodshed. You should prepare though,"

"What about Rogue?"

"Or the one you call Wolverine?" Sithis asked in response, snorting, "you have yet to see an old gods fury up close. If they are threatened then its cause to act, a simple invasion plan is not a threat otherwise I would be constantly busy."

For Bayville, and West Chester, and all the surrounding elements, and all its people things had begun to change since the most recent sentinel attack. Disclosure would change it even more, unlike Magneto the X-men had teachers who had ties to the military. Xavier, and Wolverine were both on notice of reactivation. Wolverine in particular had the un-envious position of being caught in the midst a multiservice catfight between the US army, SHIELD, and others.

Perhaps though for the town the best thing to come from the attack, was the dulling of anti mutant sentiment in the wake of it all. It helped that the Daily Bugle, out of New York, had stepped up its opposition to anti-mutant sentiment. Duncan's, and his friends, experience at the gas station wasn't unique there had been other sentinels rampaging in the area. Xavier though found his biggest support for inclusion and tolerance now came again from the highest office. They all had to come together as a nation in the face of the harsh realities. The galaxy was not a nice place. The speech continued, with President Hayes disclosing a lot, but at the same time not. There were plenty of things he glossed over, or didn't mention at all to the general public. There were plenty of backroom deals that didn't get mentioned.

-scene break-


	40. Chapter 40

-scene break-

Hermione didn't go home often, that was to say she didn't go home to see her parents. Her home as an adult was the wizarding world after all. Not that it would have mattered, because she was frequently in the muggle world often enough that she would have caught the announcement sooner or later. The American president making that kind of announcement, taking control of all of those telecommunication systems, was hard to miss. It was even harder to miss how the whole rest of the world was going crazy as a result.

The wizarding world might not care, but there was a real panic brewing in parts of the muggle world, and protests a plenty. It had been one thing when the USN had just had ten times the number of carriers or what not. Functional Militarization of space was something completely different, but for the wizarding world it didn't matter. Even Dumbledore only showed some mild interest, or at least had until Bill rolled out some of his papyrus.

"I think, and this is a guess because the record is incomplete that the flying Pyramids belonged to the children of the gods," Which was the literal translation of the word Goa'uld in English, which was who the Americans had said the ships belong to. After the whole Thanagarian Invasion years ago a muggle archeologists had made some wild claims about the Thanagarians being a part of an ancient period of Egpytian history.

Mad Eye shrugged, he'd come back because Jerusalem had turned into a madhouse. Even before that though he'd seemed dismissive of various finds that Bill had found about the Goa'uld. It would be the Old Gods to worry about, not the young gods, he'd say time and again. "Perhaps it is, the temple records agree at least," It wasn't that he'd looked it up, but there were plenty of other people who had been curious enough to look it up. Not everyone was so obsessed about what happened in the British Isles. Voldemort was a very limitted issue, especially when he'd not left the island since that misstep in France.

Dumbledore though... he couldn't let it go, and he was right Voldemort wasn't just going to stop and turn over a new leaf. "Be that as it may Bill I think we should consider our options at this stage. We have, really, dozens, dozens and more leads to work off of. I think its time we really consider narrowing things down, more than that I think its time we start thinking more about making the order something that can endure the years to come. I think its time we start expanding, but we must also protect our families. Arthur,"

The order of the Pheonix had nearly been extinguished by its losses after the first war. All those losses, and then Voldemort just vanishing over night. No great climactic battle just All Hallows coming and going. Samhain passed, and all the Potters, and the Dark Lord were just gone. The headmaster had always expected Voldemort to make his return, but the prophecy had always made it seem like there would be a triumphant champion for the light... and for five years after the Dark Lord's resurection it'd been a fruitless search. The new millenium had brought untold numbers of new mysteries. The world seemed even larger than before, and the order was delving into more and more projects.

Arthur Weasley stood up, "I know some of you already, but my boy George, well his wife is expecting, and were all very happy about, and we'd like everyone to carry dinner."

"And with that bit of good news," Albus remarked smiling his face turned somber, "I'd like to announce that I will be taking a trip to France. It will be brief, but Alastor will be taking charge in the interim." It was past time to do this anyway. He nodded to Moody.

Martin had been able to not only hold Voldemort at bay, but toss him off... a benefit of experience surely. Perhaps it was just that, but Martin didn't look any older than he had in 1945 when he'd supposedly died. There were explanations of course. They were all wizards after all.

Nicolas had invented the Philosopher's Stone, and then of course there were much darker options to prolong one's life so who could say. Alastor would be able to lead, and he'd be able to handle issues that might crop up spontaneously.

The scarred, retired, auror produced an set of transcripted notes. "I know that we've got a lot of projects," an understatement to be sure, after all the Crimson Scar was still by all indications active, and that alone was worrying, "and I'll be discussing this with others indepth, but I think the biggest lead on that disturbance in magic can be found probably found in Greece, and I've also found a bit more about the Heart of Khandrakhar." There was always some kind of backlash when gods killed each other. The amount of magic involved to kill something who was associated with a very idea, or ideas, that he drew power from was so much that something had to happen to effect the universe itself. Khandrakhar, like Oa, and others shared similiar origins. "Khandrakhar is another world and the heart is almost literally the critical organ for maintaining magical stability." Destroying the heart wouldn't destroy the world, but it would plunge it into Chaos, wreaking untold enviromental disaster upon the world. "Its entrusted to guardians to protect it, and I can only assume that those guardians must be on Earth. Its possible that perhaps they have access to this starships, but more likely they're travelling by stargate, portals between separate worlds. What I want you to do with this information is two fold, we find out what caused the disturbance, and we try and find these guardians." Alastor wasn't keen on using the order for this. Involving Sirius in this was less controversial for him, but with the end of an era approaching this kind of mission just seemed asking for trouble.

"Does that mean there is a heart of earth as well?"... the unspoken question resting in the air was obvious... was that what caused the disturbance.

Alastor doubted it, as much as the purebloods dismissed the notion that this 'disclosure' would effect their way of life.

-scene break-

US Space Command should have been a purely air force military venture, or such was the opinion of the men and women of the Air Force Contribution to the expanded command. Politcing in the legislative branch had largely conspired to shaft the junior service on the issue. Still the relatively new command and now a five star command with multiple service participation it meant a lot of money was coming to SPACECOM. On the other hand that money was split between a lot of different projects, amongst them intelligence, and identification of ships. For a thousand years the Ha'tak had been the mainstay of the goa'uld fleet. It had been their vital backbone, and even now was still useful including to the burgeoning fleet the US was operating. Unfortunately for Space Command most of those ships needed to be stripped down and rebuilt to as much of a standardized Tauri base as possible. There were plenty of other ships in the galaxy though, especially these days, and the sudden reemergence of the Ancients, that task force, prompted other concerns.

Freedom Star had been launched for a dozen reasons. A key part of its planning was that disclosure wasn't likely to happen any time soon. It had been assembled in pieces, and comprised of a multitude of individual modular compents. In a way it looked out of place from Watch Tower facilities in orbit operated by the Justice League. Freedom Star was regardless of altered time tables the orbiting center piece to the US Subspace radar warning for the solar system. It was also just another thing for various members of the UN to complain about.

"So what happens if these things actually attack?" Major Rhodes inquired.

The Admiral looked at the frozen holographic display. The lights were back to normal now that the drill had been conlcuded. For all the attempts the Goa'uld made with their Ha'taks to be impressive in a way it struck him as noveau riche attempt to be impressive. He'd gotten the chance to see the ruined 'ancient dreadnought'. The frozen display showed something more recent. The Goa'uld were trending towards, by number, smaller dedicated combatants almost all of them were. New types of Ha'tak were being produced, but most were adopting new designs into service. They were also building larger ships as well; cruisers and battleships as it were.

This thing though was not goa'uld. Nor was it even what they were calling a battleship. The Asgard had said it fit the class characterstics of an Ancient Fast Assault Cruiser, but that that definition had been from a time when even the great races had been contrained by their 'defintion' of slow ftl travel. So the actual class designator was probably wrong, but it was the best they had to go on. "If they attack, we probably all die horribly."

James Rhodes was not the only officer in the room who swallowed, "What do we know about them exactly." The holographic display changed.

"The Asgard O'Neill class is smaller, most likely because the Asgard haven't built fighters. They don't run carrier programs, don't transport troops, or various other things that require large supports to the hull." Something the Admiral might not have found inspiring, "The ancients allocate hundreds of meters to fighter storage. Fighters that are most likely more advanced than anything the goa'uld could throw at us. We're barely keeping our head above water as it is. What you men must be prepared to do is be able to recognize the technology and systems, and tactics that other species might employ, and in turn might be able to assist us. We Space Com Advanced Weapons Research, and we have a long road ahead of us." The mandate of this sub unit of the command was to compile and develop countermeasures to alien systems in relation to space combat. The SGC could build the bases from now on. A second generation of Tauri (Space) Warships were being laid down, and refinements were being made to those existing ships. This command's purpose was to be a part of a crash development initiative to design the 3rd Generation of Warships that would be employed by America's space fleet. Buried in paper work was a secondary objective, but still important. This hidden task was to develop strategies to fight other parties inside the solar system.

The Russians had access to the Prometheus Hull Design, and there were already senators, and representatives, and plenty of other people screaming over that. When it got out to the public it would be even worse. It was only the hull design no sentitive avionics, electronic components, power plant or anything like that, just the hull. A hull though was one less thing that the Russians would have to design from the ground up.

Then there were the Chinese with their access to freshly unearthed goa'uld ruins, coupled no doubt with Thanagarian technology. There were worries about them. People talked about the Chinese, and the Russians, but few people wanted to discuss the French, especially since they'd been given access to the Gordanian ship that had been recovered from San Francisco bay. No one really wanted to discuss that fact. Then again there were plenty of things that no one wanted to discuss. This was no longer just about Earth, and sooner or later the other powers would realize earth was building up to play in the big leagues.

The Goa'uld were rebuilding. The 'experts' figured they'd go to war again. This many system lords was too many as far as the goa'uld were concerned. The Goa'uld would divide into their power blocs and there would probably be a war, and then they'd rebuild again. That didn't deal with any of the existing 'second stringers', non goa'uld powers. The Gordannians could come back to earth, and there were other races. The goa'uld just happened to be the biggest most obvious player. There was a question though what the ancients were returning to the galaxy.

What then... no one knew, but it'd take time for the US to build infrastructure. There was no corporation that could readily do it. Then again that might not stop Congress from handing it off to Stark Industries, or another megacorp with a vast number defense lobbyists.

-scene break-

Oroku Saki largely distasted working with the turtles, but conceded it was a practical course of action in this situation. He'd made it clear. He'd also made facts about the Kami clear. On top of everything he did have a point that they needed allies.

Raiden, and Sokar and other Goa'uld, for all there access to advanced technology and indeed back engineered copies of ancients systems were all engaged, mired, in their own conflicts. In order to best protect earth it was necessary to work with the devils one knew. Leo looked away from the screen, "I've been thinking the Shredder does have a point we do need other allies, but with this disclosure thing, what if we look for them closer to home." Right now an emergency session of the UN was being talked about, and there was so much international hot air being spewed at everyone New York security was through the roof. Add to that making a trip half way across the country wasn't going to be easy given their appearance, and the turtles weren't quite sure what to do.

Disclosure brought a heap of new problems. Every alien fearing nutjob conspirarcy theorist had come out of the wood work, and it was just New York City. Out in Colorado the ancient alien theorists were crowding around the 'legal treastise' that had been deposited. Legitimate anthropologists also had to squeeze in; outnumbered by crazies en masse. It didn't matter that by this point it'd been photographed and it'd all been uploaded to the internet. People wanted to see the real thing, and it was near major military facilities. Leonardo knew that as much as Don, and even Mikey wanted to go they couldn't risk it.

"You mean the mutants," Raphael grunted, "Pretty sure they're a different kind, you know since we have shells and all."

Leonardo didn't deny that, "Its not like we can go to Karai, and we need some one other than Kasey and April to help with this." Master Splinter nodded, but cautioned as usual about approaching outsiders especially in these trying times... this time though it was obvious why he said that. The Shredder might not have been deliberately trying to kill them, but that didn't mean Stockman wasn't, and then there was that new thug from Oscorp he'd teamed up with recently. If they ended up in the open with those two nutjobs it'd be hard to ditch them safely in order to get back the lair. It was either go to the nearby state or try for a cross country trip though. It would still mean leaving New York.

"And what about the camera?" Raphael grunted, "You know the kid got us, I'm surprised he hasn't plastered them all over the web after that fight."

Donatello looked up, "It was an older camera. He'd have to develop the film. Its not like we haven't been in the news before," Seeing the look, "I'm not saying its not an issue, but we have a window to leave the last thing we need it people assuming we're aliens especially with all of this going on. So one way or another we should include everyone in this." He turned back to his screen. With access to Umtrom technology, and some of their small manufacturing systems it was possible to tap into both the New York street cams, and also remotely to numerous servers, or directly access data in the internet. In theory he could use the alien technology to hack through firewalls that by more terrestrial systems would have taken hours. Taking that kind of risk was dangerous, especially now, which was why Donnie didn't try and hack into anywhere unless he had to.

The Shredder was neither their friend or one of the good guys. He probably never would be, but he could potentially be a reliable ally, for the very least in fighting off this alien invasion. They weren' collaborating per se, but the Shredder might have had some advice about armor design. It was one thing to be trained ninja fighting street criminals, but guns were still dangerous. An alien invasion was sure to be worse than that. So he'd been working on insuring that his brothers and Kassey would all have armor that would hopefully protect against whatever, no doubt energy based, weapons the invaders intended to employ. Fabricating weapons though was a bit more controversial for the brothers, but again against street criminals they were ussually enough... they might not be against whatever aliens might bring.

Donnatello saved the design he'd been working on, "I say we go to West Chester, its closer, and I've got not idea how long we have remaining until the aliens get here." It had to be some time in the next two months, unless they were having some kind of malfunction issue. If they were though that didn't help them any. Their FtL was slow, but it didn't generate a lot of background energy at least not relative to the systems employed by the US Fleet. There was a reason after all the Goa'uld had for a thousand years dismissed the idea of cloaking something as large as a Ha'tak, not that Donnie knew that fact in particular.

"Dakota," Raphael responded, "More people, and you're overworked bro. If we can work together with them, and say Shredder is right," Even if heated the idea of having to admit that to the man's face, "Say he's right and we can work with Alva, thats more machinery you can work with, maybe even staff."

Mikey looked between them, "Well Raph has a point, you know."

-scene break-

Virgil had been doing a lot of thinking about the Justice League. Gear and him both had. Alva had pointed out something, all the while admitting to his own fault again, though. The Justice League had never shown up in Dakota to do something about the bang baby crises, and that was unfortunate, because most the bang babies were teenagers, or gang bangers, though some didn't fall into either group. Unlike Metropolis, or New York, or Gotham before Alva Dakota just hadn't been on the raider. There hadn't been a reason for supervillians to be interested in the town.

"So you and Norman Osborne are both dying?" Richie remarked. It was a little odd, because one would think it would have been something that the news outlets would have picked up on by this stage.

Alva nodded, "its a slow process. Norman in particlular has always despised any implication of weakness so he's done his level best to hide it. He thinks if word gets out it'll bring all the sharks around, and the loss of confidence will destroy OsCorp." He shrugged, "Its why I'm more than a little concerned about his experimentation with the mutagen." No one in the room had forgotten that it had been Alva whose scientific staff had modified it enough to create the bang babies. "No we were tasked to try and recreate the supersoldier sereum, and well I've got an increasing suspicion, worry... that the formula we received was the one from the 1930s. Or at least one of its early versions, before the doctor refined into what created Captain America." He sighed and pushed a folder over, "You two should consider summer internships here. Richard's technical aptitudes might be more obvious, but understanding the management side of thing would be good for you both." Alva's grand plan was for whenever he actually did kick it to leave the business as a legacy.

Virgil opened the file and didn't even blink at the flash drive inside his 'partental consent paperwork' for interning at Alva Industries. Alva was getting paranoid, but then again he wasn't really sure what could be on the file.

An hour later Gear and Static were both suited up. 'Boys, I'll assume you'll watch this fairly quickly and if not I'm sure its not long after I've given it to you. We've by this point all acknowledged that there is a lot more to history what we know.'

Alva had never really bought into the whole ancient alien thing. The one time practicing Catholic had been turned cold and cynical by a liftetime of cut throat business. Unfortunately after so many years of consecutive invasions it had gotten to the point where you had to accept something was going on. This was especially true given the trapping of some of the invaders.

The billionaire resumed speaking, "I've recently been put into contact with a mutant, not someone exposed to the Big Bang, named Irene Addler, and its safe to say that both the past and the present directly effect what all is coming." He paused before continuing on, "I must admit I'm not completely convinced of this whole impending end of the world, but I think at this point we need to utilize any possible advantage. Contained with this recording are the handful of 'ancient' ruins I've managed to track down with Ms Adler's help. Her help though comes with a warning besides the end of the world, specifically that about an imprisoned ancient Egyptian."

Gear mouthed the last words back to him, and Static shrugged... at this point it wasn't any crazier than the stuff they were used to dealing with. The master of technology pulled up the map, "Is that Atlantis?"  
"As in like Aquaman?"

"It is." The two teenage super heroes all but jumped out of their skins. The Speaker for the Dark Brotherhood seemed disinterested in the computer though, "Alva's little presenation would confuse the army of course, but thats what you get for trying to translate the language of the Ancients into English, names change over time," The Ayelied, and their siblings, might have individual lifespans of thousands of years, but names did change over that period. It shouldn't have been such a surprise because after all Colonia Glevum Nervensis had become Gloucester, and Londinium had become London and both those cities were far younger. "The army though may not be the issue, not for yet anyway." Elijah remarked, "It seems Norman is running out of patience, and things here have finally forced his hand." The real truth was that the Army was too busy with all the new issues that disclosure brought up, and that was also part of what was forcing Osborne's hand. "and Alva is misquoting the psychic its the end of an Era, not the end of the world."

"And thats supposed to mean what?" Static rolled his eyes when Elijah like normal failed to answer that, "So I'm guessing Osborne is going to either try and steal some of the gas that caused the big bang, or kidnap some bang babies."

A terse nod, "And who would he go to for that?" It wasn't that hard to guess who Elijah meant, because for all the enemies Static had most were metahumans. If you took away the bang babies there was almost no one left. Almost but not quite.

"Specs and Trapers?" It certainly wouldn't hurt that Osborne would have no trouble paying the two miscreants to do his dirty work for them, and the pair had standing grudges. Unfortunately even if the two did start kidnapping bang babies it wasn't something that the Justice League would notice, or at least not right off that bat. "It sounds like something those two clowns would do."

-Incomplete Rewrite-

-scene break-


	41. Chapter 41

Chapter 41

Chapter 41

Lightning Fervor

Helltanz's Notes: Here's the next chapter in celebration of the fourth of July.

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Chapter begin

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Sol, Earth, Europe, United Kingdom, Northern Alba (Scotland), Hogwarts school of wizardry and witchcraft, makeshift Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix

An unexpected part of the world wide transmission was that it was truly world wide, everyone in the wizarding and muggle world heard the message.

Add in to the fact the resulting press release had revealed certain technology, including that the muggles were using the 'metal of the gods', deeply concerned the 'traditional' wizarding populous, and the locating of the Lost City.

There was also the fact the US had lowered several Ha'tak into orbit, as well as earth built ships.

The more 'traditional', European governments, were outraged and in shock at the same time.

The Military, the US one, had also released a dossier to the varying world governments, which the wizards had gotten a hold of, included in this file were the system lords, their affiliations and relative force strength. The gods' strength divided among estimated strength whether they used Mobile Suits, Mobile Armors, or the outdated Death Gliders. Whether they had fleets comprised as strictly traditional, Ha'tak, or the new vessels.

Further more was the Hok'tar to consider, which lead to increased security on non magical bases, the wizards weren't going to be getting inside anytime soon.

"What do you make of this Albus?"

"Looks like Sithis has finally won," Moody slumped, "Supreme head of the Gods, Arkay preserve us," he groaned, "How long," the grizzled man slammed his palms, "How Long! Till the God of Death rallies the other Daedric Princes, till he casts open the gates of Oblivion, till the Brotherhood overruns all traces of resistance," he roared, "Its begun the Dark God's Final Solution, this is the Rising. Oh by the nine we've failed, its all a deception the ships, the gods' fleets are even stronger than this these are scouts, the age of Nightmares is beginning," he shouted

"Alastor what are you ranting about,"  
"Albus, we're all going to die," he muttered wand in hand trailing to his head, "its over the prophecy we're all doomed,"

"Mad eye don't!"  
"Something you lads need to see," the elderly man stated somberly,

Massive, clad in white, light blue or yellow, ships some a long as a hundred kilometers in length stood facing just as large vessels of black, red, or dark green. They expelled multi gigatons of destructive energy and hurled projectiles at hypersonic, or near light speed velocities.

The vessels advanced amongst the dark void of space, which soon turned against the white ships.

Energy waves swept outward, other energy erupted, a battle between the gods had begun…

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Milky Way Galaxy, Goa'uld space, Raiden's Dominion, Ancient (Ayeleid) Construction Ship Bairn, YNG 01 Yagami, Yagami CIC

The fleet was arrayed, though so far all that was in position was the upcoming attack against the Aschen it was well known that very shortly other targets would be attacked. Peacemillion, Granshiro, and Libra battleships surrounded the even larger YNG 01 Yagami class Flagship.

The vessel unlike its predecessor the SRT Shinku Rai Tatsu, the Yagami was built to carry Mobile Suits like a Ha'tak was built to carry Death Gliders, alright perhaps a small exaggeration as far numbers went, however it did carry twenty four hundred standard Mobile Suits, four times the number of the complement of the Gondwana carriers.

"I take it preparations are being made?"  
"Yes Raiden," replied Athena, "The Tsunami and her sister ship will be completed at the same time as YNG 04 and YNG 05, with in the next three weeks they TSU 01 and TSU 02 will both be prepared for combat operations, even if the Asgard managed to bring a surge of their latest battleships the new warships would be able to deploy rapidly enough to destroy them."  
"Yes well that's not who were worried about, nor are the Tauri, admittedly while the YNG and TSU warships are a significant step up we may even need to proceed with the other programs,"  
"Even the Asgard's new O'neill class do not have the firepower needed to incapacitate even a Shinku Rai Tatsu-"  
"That's not the point Athena," Raiden chided annoyed. "There is a high probability we will be facing an Ancient Empire, this is not five thousand years ago," He growled "I will not suffer the loss of my tier one forces, I will not risk another Rashomon." The supreme system lord said. "The enemy will not hold back like the Alteran, they will use whatever they can, I want all projects up and running before the new year,"  
"The Ancients are arrogant Raiden, how many were killed by the Daedra?" she demanded, "their technology-"  
The supreme system lord cut her off, "Exactly their technology has stopped advancing because they have had no reason to keep advancing however they'll have a reason once they encounter the Tauri," He retorted,

"Raiden if this occurs won't they interfere,"  
"We have to operate under the assumption they will be still being partisan to one another, we can not assume their assistance in this fight when it starts, they will inevitably enter the fray there can be not doubting that, but if we are to maintain supreme dominance over the empire we will need to keep advancing," the Shinto Kami flicked a switch, "When the TSU 03 Itegumo is finished you will take TSU 02 Hyozanmaru along with the Fleet Crimson Hail in Winter find and kill Zeus, lay waste to whatever he is working on." He commanded.

"Isn't that a tad rash?"

Raiden nodded acknowledging her point, "If whatever he's working on interests you, keep it, if you so desire," he replied. "We have half of the remaining Galaxy to conquer, and I expect the Ori will attack with in a time frame of two years,"  
"We don't have a large enough army to complete that level of conquest in that frame of time," she exclaimed,

"I'm aware of that, but the probability is we have no choice, which is why we made the decision to not attack the Asgard despite their weakened state," Raiden replied, "Besides it is unfortunate but in the event of an Ori incursion there is little choice," the supreme system lord said, "As you said we have limited resources as far as personnel," The Shinto Kami remarked, "Hence the reason for the Tauri and certain allies,"  
"The Tok'ra won't be much use,"  
"I'm aware of the obvious fact," He retorted. "I was not referring to them, especially considering I intend to exterminate the vermin, however, in this case I was referring to the Sholva Bratac and his faction. Apophis and the others like him were fools but their idiocy proved to be of the benefit of the other System Lords, by keeping the Jaffa from understanding the technology and their arrogance allowed this to occur, that they do not understand their former masters' weapons and ships makes them a fleeting foe, they will die out soon enough, what is few centuries to us, and that is presuming they do not become extinct if a conflict does occur, these heretics are infighting amongst themselves as it is, and with the Tauri,"

Athena nodded, "And what of the remnants of the Tollan?" asked the minor system lady. "After Anubis's attack the Tauri managed to evacuate majority of the society, they moved them to a habitable planet near the first world. Anubis was arrogant, he sent only a single Ha'tak the Tauri were able to salvage a large portion of the Tollan technology, albeit they were foolish enough not to use much for their own gain."  
"At least until the Tollan gave them permission," Athena commented,

-

-

Tauri Shipbuilding world

"So how's everything going," O'neill asked,

"USS Andromeda and USS Jupiter are both on schedule." Responded the admiral.  
"Think Sparky will pissed we have USS Minerva in the works?" the General inquired with a smug look.

"I doubt it," Carter remarked, "He'll probably not even care,"  
"Be just like him," Jack grumbled, "Admiral how is the fleet, we are going to be ready?" he demanded,

"Yes sir, defense fleet on earth can stop anything short of a massed assault by an Advanced Goa'uld Fleet, the normal ones we should be able to stop the regular Ha'tak class vessels the flag shall be carried by the USS Bunker Hill, her and USS Fort Sumter are both in defensive Orbit over the East Coast, the Korlev and the Granagrin are over Russia, the rest of the Defense fleet is intermittent spread through out the solar system,"

"Except the fact is we have all the heavy ships," O'neill complained, "What about the new ships?"

"Orbital shipyards should have the first three Black Wolf class vessels for earth up in running in a another month and a half."

"I understand President Hayes decided to take a leaf from Raiden's book," stated Colonel Carter  
The general groaned, "Don't remind me," he replied, "I can't believe we labeled them Assault Carriers. What about the Russians?"

"Should have their first non Prometheus ready for launch in a month."

-

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Aedric – Daedric Arm, comprised Neutral meeting zone, Nirn

Twenty two Divine entities were arrayed. Sithis looked particularly smug, the matter at hand was going before a joint vote now, the god of death's allies had already voted.

"This is unprecedented Sithis," remarked Stendarr,

Zenithar nodded, "He's correct, this is quite a surprise"

"That may be but I pledge my support to this plan," Julianos stated, surprising many present "If the Ori attack I will work along side the Daedra as we did against the Ayeleid."  
Kynareth spoke next, despite Molag Bal leering at all the goddesses present, "I will commit my forces as well,"

"I must consider," Hermaeus Mora said cautiously, "though I believe this maybe the correct course of action should these events come to pass."

"I personally believe this is one of Mephala's plots," Sanguine snapped, "However if this is indeed the case, killing the Ori is a nessisity." He admitted.

Mara and Dibella made no inclination of speaking yet, not that it mattered, just as the God of Death did not particularly care for Peryite's opinion on the matter.

Boethiah, voice his assent to the resolution, though that was to be expected given the Daedra's war like preference.

Clavicus Vile voted against, claiming it was a waste of resources, was this not neutral ground half the Daedra would have torn him to ribbons for his arrogant tone, perhaps a change in order was in the works, Sithis mused.

Meridida, the former Aedra, voted her ascent.

Molag Bal unsurprisingly voted his approval of the measure as well.

Namira gave her ascent.

Arkay frowned, "I will support this measure Sithis," he stated after a few minutes, "on the condition you do not lay a hand on Kynareth so long as the Ori draw breadth."  
"oh," Sithis remarked, "That's interesting," the dark god commented propping his cheek upon his hand, he smirked maliciously, "So agreed, so long as the Ori live Arkay you have my word," the Daedric god of death drawled locking eyes with the Aedric god of death, his counter part

It was done, the agreement was finalized, Sithis would have laughed if it would have been appropriate.

-

-

Earth, North America, United States of America, Heatherfield

On Earth the guardian of the Heart of Kandrakar shivered.

"Will?" asked Cornelia nervously,

The leader of the Guardians turned "Sithis just won a major victory, I think, or there is some other reason for him to be ecstatic." She whispered slumping down wrapping her arms around her knees.

"You think he killed Nerrisa?"

"If he did that he probably killed all the former guardians as well," Irma remarked morosely. This idea was quickly shot down as the air distorted.

"So much for that idea," Taranee commented as Nerrisa and the former generation of guardians arrived… and launched their attack on the heart of Meridian.

"Why can't these people just leave Ellyon the Hell alone," Growled Cornelia angrily, accidentally summoning an earthquake in the process.

"Cornelia don't wreck the city," joked Irma, sending a torrent of water.

A massive serpentine creature rose, and promptly battered a member of the former generation into a building.

"Cedric,"

"Prince Phobos has commanded I assist you," he hissed, just before the meridian lord was forced to narrowly evade an elemental attack.

The air began to shift, "That's not Sithis,"  
"Impossible," Nerissa remarked. The man wore exquiste chinese robes, a fine beard, and one of those weird little caps.

The old man raised his left hand and sent a wave of golden light at the rebel guardians the impact on the ground and trees ripping them apart.

"Yu," growled Nerissa, "Your attacking us,"  
"Impertinentence," the system lord responded. "I have no interest in your rebellion, Kandrakar will be destroyed," The system lord announced smugly.

-

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Chapter Conclusion

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Helltanz's Notes: by popular request Old Man Yu makes an appearance.

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Halo 2 If occur the Ancients are the same species as the guys who built the Halos, the Covenant will quickly find on meeting the Goa'uld, and all the human worlds contained with in their empire, will suffice to say be in a mess of trouble

Other suggestions:

Battlestar Galactica 7 (Looks like this one will win,) SO that brings up a point, should it be before or after the nuclear holocaust of the 12 colonies?

1 for prior the Nuclear Holocaust

Prior to the Holocaust Humanity of the Colonies will not really get along with Earth, possibly to the point of being hostile in some scenarios. Not everyone, in the colonies, will be liking the other Goa'uld Pantheons either,

1 for after Nuclear Holocaust

In the event after the Holocaust it will be a little later after the Ori have been dealt with for the first time, and the Earth will be making first contact more than likely, Baltar will be an ass and try take advantage of the situation more than likely. The cylons will be on the wrong end of a combined arms human fleet, and to say nothing of when they meet Raiden's Mobile Dolls.

Babylon 5: 2 (Suggested by jedielfsorcerer) (Admittedly the stronger races fighting the Shadows and Vorlons would be amusing, if only because the ass kicking the two uber races of B5 would receive, to say nothing of the Minbari trying to fight Earth later on in the story)

Robotech (that might be a bit hard to pull off, but not impossible, and would give earth a big ship) Zentradi would be squaring off against earth, the Goa'uld would probably face down against the Robotech Masters or the Invid, admittedly I don't like the later

Star Trek: 1 In this case it would be a very AU Star Trek, I'd probably drop the borg, say they got killed thousands of years ago or something, though Klingons and Romulans would be interesting, admittedly assuming the loss of tech for Earth, no world war three no Cocharene, earth will have a fledgling empire by the time they meet the Vulcans

Starship Troopers: 2 In this case the bugs I would probably up their intelligence a bit, can you say OH SHIT.

Chronicles of Riddick: 3 Draconicflare brought up a good point for this

Please remember to vote when you review, also if you have a suggestion please feel free to make it.

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	42. Chapter 42

Chapter 42

Chapter 42

Lightning Fervor

Helltanz's Notes: Though several ship classes have been taken whole from Gundam some have seen upgrades in size, examples noticeably the ships classes based off the Nazca, Minerva, and Laurasia class vessels from GSD.

We must also remember that Yu's Jaffa are very well trained, that comes up later, so no one is confused.

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Chapter begin

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Earth, North America, United States of America, Heatherfield

The old man made quite short work in beating down the upstart rebel fromer guardians.

"Who are you?" Demanded Irma sticking her finger in the old man's face.

"I am Yu," The system lord stated  
"Not me you," Irma exclaimed indignantly.  
"Yes, I am Yu," The ancient emperor responded.

"Answer the damn question." She shouted, "Who are you?"

The system lord frowned behind his beard, apparently intelligence in humans was rare, "I have told you I am Yu," He remarked patiently.

Irma frowned, now even more confused. "Are you deaf,"  
"No Yu is very old," The system lord replied  
Irma's eye twitched, "I am not old." She screamed outraged.

Cedric snarled, "No you stupid girl," He hissed angrily.

"You stay," She turned, "Not you, stay out of this scaly."

-

-

Sol, Antarctica outpost, 'Goa'uld Embassy'

Artemis was both annoyed and was idly pacing, while she wondered why she had to be the one to deal with the Tauri, Athena could have just as easily if not easier, and the outside temperature was intolerable, and the outpost still had not been completely repaired.

She crossed her arms over her chest angrily. 'Those damn Tauri politicians,' The system lady complained mentally, Raiden had actually, and quite sternly, forbidden her from using her hand device on the arrogant worms.

With the revelation of the Tauri stargate program, and by proxy that the Earth had a functioning Alien, or God, power controlled base in the middle of the south pole, said outpost featuring exceptionally powerful weapons originally, to say nothing of what the Supreme System Lord had planned… yes the Military Tauri, and conspiracy nuts, especially with the revelation Area fifty one was a base for the department of homeworld security, were to say a little concerned, as were the paranoid politicians, which meant the greater majority of politicians.

The rest, the idiot politicians, were assuming it was some kind of diplomatic station, which was absurd Raiden had the station reopened so as to 'protect' the Tauri not pretend their equals.

Well the only positive thing was with the outpost now up and running, public, and of course finally once again above the ice, why the Supreme System Lord simply didn't dispatch a city ship to the world was beyond Artemis's understanding, it would certainly assist in tactical matters, and allow more ships to dock at any given time. The system lady looked at the two Pegasus class vessels docked at the outpost.

"Hello sister," Apollo abruptly took a step back to evade any possible blows that might be thrown at him due to his sibling's ill temper. "Well you should be aware Raiden has deployed and additional Squadron of Frigates to this world, however given the Asgard's position it is likely that will be all that will be stationed here permanently."

"I see," That was somewhat reassuring at least, the Asgard weren't raising too much of a complaint over the forces, meaning it was highly likely the Replicators were pushing them against the wall.

The earth was still going to complain over the United States, and Russia's, now unveiled capacity, and would complain even more as the United States continued and built more ships, and despite the alien attacks in the past, it truly hadn't sunk in just yet the destructive force of these ships on a wide scale yet, when that happened there would likely be panic in the streets.

The Tauri would be however arriving shortly, in their continued attempt to set up connections to the Goa'uld.

One of the politicians managed to collide directly with the general of dreams.

"Tsukasa," The golden haired minor system lord exclaimed in concern.

"I am fine Apollo-san," Replied the white garbed teen rising.

"-san," murmured one of the ambassadors,  
"I may be a god," Apollo remarked casually,

Artemis smirked, "This little one is in fact one of the top officers in the military his authority exceeds that of most of the minor Kami,"

"I thought you might want to know the Yagami will be arriving in a few minutes in Earth Orbit." Tsukasa stated politely.

-

-

Earth, United States of America, Washington District of Columbia

Raiden glanced at the humans, Artemis was complaining, and for what she had to deal with the human politicians, the supreme system lord was probably enduring worse at these pesky gnats known as reporters, and it didn't help protesters were buzzing about either complaining about any number of things that could be linked to the stargate program, the non proliferation treaties, or the space weapons, which from his understanding dealt only with nuclear weapons, the secrecy of the stargate program in general, the other major protests over the Hok'tar.

It was even worse one of the Russian Ha'tak had managed to stumble across one of Sithis's blasted, and far to numerous in his opinion, mega structures, the only possible way this could have been worse is if they had stumbled on one of the what humans termed Dyson spheres, that arguably would have been worse, the defenses would have caused a stir alone, more than that humanity were exceptionally curious creatures, if it saw the thing it would pester it constantly, and it was a near certainty the humans would have been interested in the Dyson Sphere in the core realm even given its location.

Suffice to say the Cathedral, as it was named, was going to draw very much attention once that Ha'tak arrived, thankfully the Cathedral had denied the use of sub space communication.

The Mega structures outside the arm, which the Daedra and Aedra, were immensely powerful, immense technological facilities, much superior to the Ancient, the Ayeleid, whom the Daedric and Aedric forces had obliterated nearly ten million years ago.

The Mega structures had been constructed during the period which had been termed by Sithis as the Age of Myth, the period after the Ayeleid had been destroyed and the Alteran mainstay had fled, the Alteran had eventually returned and due mostly to their weakened state, and distinct lack of military engaged in an arrogant attempt to rebuild

'Their' empire, where the combined force of three 'races' had soon destroyed them, among them the fledgling Goa'uld, after that conflict the second 'race' turned against the others.

The Russians would immediately rush off and tell the department of homeworld security, the Americans would immediately go bother Carter and the other scientists, and probably end up pestering O'neill to trudge through the ancient database.

The secret service people and guards were getting pushed back by the enormous crowds of people, some merely curious onlookers others were protesters.

Raiden watched as fools shouted their rallying babble.

"Uh…" The secretary of state muttered, as the supreme lord's eyes clouded over. The sky darkened over the more 'angry' protestors, rain began to fall with in a few seconds, it was easy at first, but when the protestors did not as the Shinto Kami desire disperse, it increased in force.

The System Lord who had just recently returned to the front of galactic political front, Ptah scowled, he despite impressive intellect had never had much in the way in 'magical' abilities that directly manifested like Raiden was demonstrative of.

O'neill glared, quietly muttering an annoyed and slightly childish 'show off,' under his breadth.

The group of high profile people entered the building in front of them, this was going to be an extremely long, and very, very annoying diplomatic meet and greet, to say nothing of the political appearances.

-

-

Raiden shook his head, it had been easy enough to deal with the pesky 'mutant registration bill', the sight in orbit was the Russian Vosuglov, the first of the eastern superpower's black wolf class was in construction in the third of the five orbital docks around the earth, along side the Trotsky.

Her American siblings, Golden Eagle and Red Fox were forming an honor guard esque pattern around the Atlas, more human built vessels were present and multiple Ha'tak floated around.

Already was the 728th squadron of Tsuigara class Frigates in position, supplementing the normally stationed ships, in addition to Artemis's Selene and her escorts.

The presence was somewhat marginalized, due to the three large dark shapes of the Yagami class, as well as the two Tsunami class vessels, along with their escorts, in addition to Ptah's soon to be leaving forces, including his Ha'tak Mothership, which resembled a massive type three with and additional base at the bottom, beside it were numerous type three Ha'tak, but Ptah's Ha'tak, 'the boat of a million years', was beyond just a large type three style Mothership, it incorporated anti capital ship Alteran directed energy weapons, as well as drones, powerful Alteran shields and zero point modules, the monstrosity was a danger to many ships in the galaxy, but none the less Raiden worried little, Ptah wouldn't attack, and the supreme system lord knew well enough that his vessels were superior, after all Ptah had only had fifty thousand years to develop from a for the most part mainly Alteran technological base.

Of course the Goa'uld had to figure out how to work the technology, in that field the Tauri had the benefit of the complete database inside O'neill's head.

There were of course other things going on; Yu had decided to make an appearance, throwing the Council at Kandrakar into a tizzy, after all if the old man said he was going to destroy you, he was, and would follow through on that statement, in addition the crazy anti evolution Tauri had received a slightly more hostile reaction, the previous afternoon at the Xavier school.

Overall however on earth the various terrorist factions were hardly being quiet, however with the incorporation of scanners on the remaining United States Navy sea faring vessels, as well as the military bases, Iran had mysteriously found its 'nuclear power plant' missing when a terrorist cell had attempted to use a dirty bomb with uranium from the plant, after the bomb and the terrorists had gotten beamed up into space.

France had its major cities undergoing massive riots, especially considering that O'neill had casually let it slip that France had know about the danger posed by the Anubis and done nothing, and when it had been the US in northern France, well it was basically a three day reenactment of Normandy with live bullets, or staff weapons, and Jaffa playing the part of Nazis and the US as the US. The cities where Anubis had landed troops had suffered only minor damage, but the casualties had been present none the less.

Great Britain was also undergoing problem, the supreme system lord made a mental note to himself to speak with Morrigan.

-

-

Sol, Earth, North America, United States of America, Bayville, Xavier School for the gifted

Sithis leaned back contently, the divine statement issued by Raiden had done some help for the Hok'tar, if none the less the radical conservatives, and radical anti mutant people were still up in arms, the loss of the moderates, especially given how public opinion had shifted over the last eighteen months.

The dark god watched as the advanced human adolescents ran about in the courtyard below.

"You got a song about you?"  
The Daedric lord quirked an eyebrow, "I wasn't aware the ballads had spread to this world." He remarked.

"Naw," Rogue responded, holding up a compact disc. "this band's latest singles lyrics mention someone who sounds an awful lot like you,"

"Prince of Darkness," The god of Death said unconvinced,

"Read down a few more lines," She retorted.

"I suppose this could mention me," Sithis commented, "Lord of cloudless nights hunting for souls-" He paused, "The lyrics do seem to imply me, as well as the brotherhood," He admitted.

"See I told ya," The young lady remarked, "So who's the girl?"  
He blinked, "Not a clue," The Daedric lord drawled. "we have incoming."

The air exploded with a puff of sulfurous fumes. "Sorry about that," Exclaimed a fuzzy blue creature as he crashed on to the desk.

Kitty dusted her self off, "Um are we interrupting something?"  
"No," Sithis replied, "Merely a discussion of music,"  
"Oh really," The teen inquired, far to cheerfully, Rogue sent him a dark look from behind shadow cat's back.

"I presume your schooling is progressing smoother now," The dark god remarked, with a nod. "Now that those Neanderthals have been reprimanded,"

"Err yeah,"

"Excellent," He commented, "though it would seem the message isn't as thorough as it needs to be… perhaps it should be emphasized, what of the radicals of your own populous?"

"Magnus has for now been very quiet on the matter," Charles stated entering the room, "If Mystique would take the example I think relations would do better,"

"Ah the shape shifter," He remarked, slightly his head turned to Nightcrawler. "I would presume certain others of the population are acting out so to speak,"

"Yes," acknowledged Xavier.

-

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Chapter Conclusion

-

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Helltanz's Notes: Speaking of ships, possibility of giving an earth power a ship like the Nelson, albeit it would have the 'arms' of the Daedalus class.

-

-

Halo 2 If occur the Ancients are the same species as the guys who built the Halos, the Covenant will quickly find on meeting the Goa'uld, and all the human worlds contained with in their empire, will suffice to say be in a mess of trouble

Other suggestions:

Battlestar Galactica 7 (Looks like this one will win,) SO that brings up a point, should it be before or after the nuclear holocaust of the 12 colonies?

1 for prior the Nuclear Holocaust

Prior to the Holocaust Humanity of the Colonies will not really get along with Earth, possibly to the point of being hostile in some scenarios. Not everyone, in the colonies, will be liking the other Goa'uld Pantheons either,

1 for after Nuclear Holocaust

In the event after the Holocaust it will be a little later after the Ori have been dealt with for the first time, and the Earth will be making first contact more than likely, Baltar will be an ass and try take advantage of the situation more than likely. The cylons will be on the wrong end of a combined arms human fleet, and to say nothing of when they meet Raiden's Mobile Dolls.

Babylon 5: 5 (Suggested by jedielfsorcerer) (Admittedly the stronger races fighting the Shadows and Vorlons would be amusing, if only because the ass kicking the two uber races of B5 would receive, to say nothing of the Minbari trying to fight Earth later on in the story, of course I believe the minies would have a slight numerical advantage)

Robotech (that might be a bit hard to pull off, but not impossible, and would give earth a big ship) Zentradi would be squaring off against earth, the Goa'uld would probably face down against the Robotech Masters or the Invid, admittedly I don't like the later

Star Trek: 1 In this case it would be a very AU Star Trek, I'd probably drop the borg, say they got killed thousands of years ago or something, though Klingons and Romulans would be interesting, admittedly assuming the loss of tech for Earth, no world war three no Cocharene, earth will have a fledgling empire by the time they meet the Vulcans

Starship Troopers: 2 In this case the bugs I would probably up their intelligence a bit, can you say OH SHIT.

Chronicles of Riddick: 3 Draconicflare brought up a good point for this

Please remember to vote when you review, also if you have a suggestion please feel free to make it.

-

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	43. Chapter 43

Chapter 43

Lightning Fervor

Helltanz's Notes: Baal means Lord, Allah means Master, I was just pointing that out for clarification of what the names mean. And it also harkens to Goa'uld arrogance.

Also as to why ships seem to be more like the old wet navies I figure missiles can be shot down. Railguns, energy cannons, and even regular slug throwers, they are a lot harder to intercept, and the faster they go more kinetic energy impacting the shields.

Anyway yeah I promised an update to certain parties I admit this is a bit more rough than I would have liked but my word as my bond and all here is 43.

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Chapter begin

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Earth, North America, United States of America, Heatherfield

Will frowned; the meeting with the council hadn't gone well. Yeah, major understatement, she thought to herself as she smacked her radio which was playing butterfly again.

They, the council, had neither revealed why the first Emperor of China 'Yu' wanted to destroy them, or what to do about Nerissa and her generation or her latest flunkies, or why Sithis had an interest in the heart; speaking of which they had attempted to get her to relinquish the Heart of Kandrakhar.

Obviously the Guardians of Earth, the planet, had not been pleased of course by such demands especially after all their hard work.

Of course any more argument was cut off as Nerissa attacked again though rather than the previous generation of guardians, CHKYN, she had brought her so called Knights of Hate to attack the City's other primary magically related resident; Ellyon.

What was worse about the event was that Phobos had decided to show up and with to say the Meridian prince was not at all pleased by the turn of events, would have been an understatement, whatever was powering up Phobos's already impressive magic, Will personally suspected Sithis's intervention on that matter, allowed him to fight Nerrissa to a stand still until the guardians had arrived causing the ex keeper of the Heart to withdraw from the city.

Phobos had remained briefly much to Cornelia's ire.

The Prince's message implied Sithis believed something bad was likely going to occur soon. Those ruling Kandrakhar agreed, but like always failed to elaborate, so the present generation of guardians had returned home disappointed and exhausted.

Will sat up surrounding her was all manner of freakish nightmare surroundings.

"Ah the guardian of the heart," Came Nerissa's chilling voice, and then her laugh as the former guardian approached.

"Where are we?" Demanded Will.

"Why, the world the world of nightmares, of course," Responded Nerissa smugly to the younger guardian of the heart.

A jade light gleamed from the present guardian of the heart's breast forming a barrier of light, ominous in its glow, around Will.

"What's this?" Hissed the ex keeper angrily slamming her restored fist into the barrier which sent her backwards

"Do you think I would allow you power here, mortal," Called the death god amused, the scenes of carnage did not subside as Will hoped. "Very few things can touch my mind and even live for the barest of moments, do you think I would allow an opportunity to escape me?" He remarked Nerissa's face began to seemingly melt, running down like hot wax. "Kandrakhar was weak, imprisoning you in a coffin, but they'll burn soon enough and after that well you may join them in Oblivion." The Daedric lord hissed, as he had said he did not intend for this opportunity to escape him.

The ground and surroundings morphed flickering, going into flux.

Sithis's smirk merely grew, 'All most as planned.' Not that it mattered soon enough things would be in place.

-

-

Talpa was hardly pleased by this turn of events. His warriors were proving of only equal match to the Ronin who opposed him, and that wasn't even the worst of recent turns of events, which were concerning the warlord.

Saki was polishing his prongs, "Stop sulking," Hissed the older of Raiden's retainers to the dark clad man.

The fact was more than a number of things were tying up their attention. The Shinso vampires were becoming a nuisance once more and the supreme system lord was quite insistent they be obliterated.

Considering monitoring of activity indicated not only was it on the rise, that the pawns of the species were actually being engineered by the US military… suffice to say the Shinto kami was probably going to be furious with that little tidbit of information, even if the humans of earth's United States military who were handling the project and the Stargate Command were separate, but in the event the NID was involved well it would be most unfortunate...

Well if that were the case Talpa and Saki expected a number of deployments from all the ninja clans under the supreme system lord's dominion to be sent to resolve the situation in a hopefully expedient manner.

That would probably settle the issue with out to much trouble…. Hopefully.

-

-

Raiden spun around driving his heel into the robed human's stomach, "You fools." He snarled, the magic released caused the power to flicker.

The supreme system lord grabbed another by his collar and hurled him. Lightning flashed across the room hitting the guards.

Guan Yu's guards had moved into position opening fire with their arm mounted weapons into the remaining troops of the Oracle. "What is it we do Brothers?" inquired the system lord in question.  
While not totally unexpected this still irked him to no end. "Kandrakar will pay, begin the mobilization," Raiden stated scowling.  
"He is correct," The eldest system lord agreed, nodding solemnly.

The sole Shinto Kami could tell the first Emperor was angry, "We begin to attack the worlds supposedly under the protection of Kandrakar," The supreme system lord said watching as Yu went about plunging a Chinese dagger into a man's ribs.

The initial assault had been with one of the juggernauts from one of the worlds that the Council of Kandrahkar ruled, a world Yu had been correct it seemed insisting should have been destroyed years ago.

The metal armed creature attempted to rise, a blade slashed through its meaty throat, Raiden sheathed his katana in the same motion as he had drawn, several thousand years of practice had perfected his ability, oh and having enhanced musculature and synapses helped he supposed.

-

Sithis Frowned; Raiden scowled the duality were deeply displeased by the turns of events that had occurred as of late, and this most recent report only exasperated the situation in the galaxy.

Yu had several primary enemies; most notable of course was Anubis, however recently ships bearing the mark of Huang Di's, a system lord who had vanished around the same time as Allah's own vanishing act, seeing as both had been enemies some assumed they had destroyed one another unlikely but possible, had been making an appearance and causing trouble for the Goa'uld in the area of their appearance.

The vessels were advanced attack class ships bearing his mark, the Tauri had labeled them type five ha'tak, the classification was perhaps not totally off except Ha'tak were generally pyramid like these vessels more resembled pagodas, though with the base like the Ha'tak and surrounding superstructure, the class also boasted more ancient technology; unsurprisingly since the original Goa'uld fleet had originally been comprised of Alteran vessels the Goa'uld had managed to get to work.

Ha'tak which had been developed at that time, during the first Goa'uld empire, i.e. the one which had proceeded Ra, were far weaker than their counterparts of that time from this class, and that was the case in most cases when comparing these with the minor system lords ha'tak against these new vessels bearing Huang Di's crest.

However in the end the Ha'tak vessel had won out as the Goa'uld's mainstay ship because it was cheaper and simpler.

So if Yu's foe had survived so to perhaps an old rival had, and to put it quite frankly that could be both good or bad.

The supreme system lord looked at the ship in orbit threw back his head an laughed, nor was it a pleasant laugh, not now this was hardly the time.

Lighting split the sky obliterating the descending vessel

Allah and Huang Di even on with so much as five hundred years would be a severe threat but now indeed the Tauri had quite possibly drawn the Ori, truly this was not pleasant for his plans.

Yu seemed equally displeased sitting their with a disturbingly quiet rage, the ancient system lord generally a benign, well maybe benign was to strong of a word, old man, or the closest a system lord could come to that, still was one of the stronger amongst that August body in the powers of the Arcane.

-

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Milky Way

Sithis overlooked the world that was below his floating vessel.

Assembled were many races before him. The latest complications were unforeseen but of course such things usually were that was the nature of complications after all.

The stealth equipment of the Judicators, the senior Executioners, were currently off though the Daedric lord would still have been capable of seeing them.

"We are prepared Dread Father," They intoned in unison.

He nodded before speaking. "Prepare the strike forces, should the Ori attempt to send their priests, begin the extermination."  
"By your will," The members of the Brotherhood responded in harmony.

The humans had managed to find Myrdin's treasure trove, and activated the long range communication, at the moment there was no indication the Ori had found the Milky Way however it was likely they would. If such a turn of events did occur that would only complicate the current situation.

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Sol, Earth, United States of America, District of Columbia

The US military high command and the senate were arguing with each other and themselves. To more or less summarize the idea of creating a new branch proposed by the more genial civilians had been met with annoyance and at worst out right hostility, of course the idea of keeping the present set up of Earth's childlike fleet also was far to problematic to be efficient.

Jack O'neill was currently off the Atlas, and rubbing his temples and was really regretting having come out of retirement, even superpowers weren't worth the headache brought about by dealing with politicians.

"Hello O'neill," Stated a voice, the Alteran groaned as everyone turned to face the immaculately dressed supreme system lord.

"Raiden," Exclaimed a member of the United States Senate Committee on Armed Services in surprise. A cursory glance swept the room before he returned his attention to the Alteran. "I believed it was prudent inform you that Supreme Commander Thor of the Asgard is coming via the new Charles class, I believe, you had a hand in designing them for combatting the replicators did you not?" He inquired rhetorrically

"Charlie," O'neill corrected irritably.

He really wasn't all that concerned. "Yes," Raiden replied dismissively the ships were powerful still not capable of matching the SRT battleships but still dangerous, it might even require the Asgard to be destroyed sooner, than expected, if such growth in technology continued the Asgard had stagnated if they started growing again it would really be a bother. "As I was saying I believe it involves the replicators,"  
O'neill really wished he had a beer. "What have the mecha bugs done this time?" The brash inquiry, not to mention terminology received some odd looks.

"I believe the 'bugs' launched an offensive against Orilla," Raiden commented, "It was sufficient enough to catch our attention,"  
"And?"  
"Hmm," The supreme system lord smirked "I employed a weapon via my Yagami class vessels,"  
A weapon my ass thought the general, Raiden had something that was even better against the replicators, something the little gray buddies of Earth were concerned about and hoped he could duplicate it.

"But this is an important meeting these Asgard can't just show up and…" Ranted one of politicians angrily.  
"Senator," O'neill interjected, "Thor is traveling from another galaxy and his people are facing a race of mechanical bugs that want to eat everything of use in sight, uh by the way that includes us."

"Uhm about the ships in orbit," one of the politicians asked changing the subject to something a little closer to home.

"The Frigates should be capable of holding off a threat long enough for reinforcements from the main forces," The supreme system lord of the goa'uld remarked, at least against normal forces, the Ori if they arrived would be a problem.  
The representative nodded dumbly.  
"You have my congratulations on the new ships," The Shinto Kami stated, vanishing in a lightning bolt.

-

YNG 01 Yagami

In orbit the system lord frowned upon the bridge of his latest vessel it would seem the humans had been investigating Merlin's treasure trove and unfortunately done something drastically stupid by the radio chatter, and even if it was nothing well…. That didn't explain why O'neill had been about to make a report of the finding.

This could mean problems, especially with the strange emissions approaching the galaxy via hyperspace expected to arrive in three weeks in what had formerly been Allah's territory.

Out of personnel respect Raiden was prepared to meet this new, possible, threat and prevent them from defiling an old rival's, one who had mysteriously vanished along with his forces, dominion.

"My lord," Intoned a Jaffa, though this one had oddly slitted pupils, genetic engineering of regular humans wasn't the only thing the supreme system lord had tried of course Ra's slipshod work had made it harder for him to get the enhancements to be stable, "We are detecting an energy surge from Nippon."

Raiden smirked well at least something was going as planned.

-

-

It would seem business was bringing out the best the Tauri could create; the US had begun extending its contracts to more of the heavy industries encouraging large projects for science.

As it stood now, not that it wasn't unexpected, Wayne Corp, Foot Corp, as well as more normal, read less affiliated with advanced technology, had been joined by Stark Industries among others.

In some cases this might cause problems the US army were pushing for increase in funding to its infantry weapons projects.

Admittedly in the years it would take the Tauri to get their 'power armor' ready for use, Raiden would by the time of this day next year have already instituted deployment of his own 'powered armor' to his jaffa and other military troops so it was mostly irrelevant.

The other forces were moving accordingly as expected.

All that remained were the replicators in Idun and the Asgard of course, the prior of which was being handled it would seem, though the bugs assault against Orilla, and the Shinto Kami's counter attack had only wiped out the outer rim of the system, though it had burnt out the power facilities for the majority of the system.

"So its true then?"

The supreme system lord nodded. "Yes the Asgard have consulted with O'neil," He confirmed,

The other Kami looked nervous at this. "Will that interfere with the plan?" the brown haired Japanese god inquired pressing his fingers together.

"I don't believe so," Raiden remarked in reply. "None the less I do believe we should tap Inari and Bishoumon," He paused for a moment of consideration before speaking up again. "oh and contact Guan Yu that positron lance will be quite effective and not simply against the Replicators."

The Chinese system lord's new melee weapon generated not a traditional beam weapon but instead a variable field of antimatter, such energy weapons were very effective against the replicators… of course with O'neill and the upgrades to the Asgard fleet well the damage was done to them but the Replicators were mostly crippled as well the combined prior mentioned would win.

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Sol, North America, United States of America, Gotham City, Wayne manor

As if the problems in everything going one wasn't enough it would seem Ra's Al Ghul was acting strange, well stranger than the normal oddness it was enough to garner the attention of the supreme System Lord this was one of Allah's top subordinates, human or other wise.

Also it was enough that Talia had brought it to the Dark Knight attention, as if having a God of Death was looking down at you for most likely something which didn't bode well for the rest of humanity was not bad enough.

OF course the rest of the rogues gallery wasn't being quite either, well besides Bane who seemed to have reformed, and Catwoman. Riddler's disappearance was also somewhat disconcerting.

At least as far the Dark Knight was concerned things were much to quite to be a positive indicator of things.

There was also Wayne Industries to consider, competing with the other mega corps to build the US's new technologies and equipment, the contract to refit New Port shipping yards for one.

The Wayne heir turned to Talia….

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Chapter Conclusion

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Helltanz's Notes: After this things get heated up, the Ori are on their way two new powerful goa'uld make their appearance, or reappearance since they will show up in the prequel. Plus there is all the mess on Earth to deal with, as well as the fact very soon a war with Kandrakhar will begin, and it will also involve internal conflicts, of course with bigger issues to worry about the war won't get focused on since most resources will go to fighting the Ori until the initial beating of them is done, which will be costly to most the regular Goa'uld forces who repressed the magical populous, the only innate counter to priors.

Once Kandrakhar starts up the Wizarding world on Earth will of course start to make their more frequent appearance.

Anyway as promised I updated, could some one if its not to trouble read and review Final Crescendo, please I'd really appreciate the feed back on the story, oh and keep an eye out for my latest HP fic which should be released soon.

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	44. Chapter 44

Chapter 44

Lightning Fervor

Helltanz's Notes: 44 yay, little bit more Earth Magical world this chapter, tad short but uh yeah check my profile for the 24 of March kind of important note.

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Chapter begin

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Sol, Earth, United Kingdom, Hogwarts

Albus Dumbledore poured over the ancient leather bound tome that rested on his desk the fact was the Wizarding world needed Harry Potter. The magical world was too separated from the non magical world and to ingrained in its beliefs to fully comprehend exactly what all was going on.

Black's escape had raised issues and Moody had become steadily more paranoid about the growing activity. Going so far, the scarred Auror, had admitted that the knights of the gods could sense one another, but Black wasn't a member of the brotherhood so he was a wild card and whatever he was doing for Sithis was causing trouble.

Certainly the idea of the gods using avatars, vessels for their powers made sense, but the wizards needed Harry to defeat Voldemort. To this end the aging headmaster was preparing to summon Harry himself.

Dark families were certainly spreading the worship of the gods and while not necessarily a bad thing, certainly Albus supported the status quo, it was causing additional strife between the muggleborns for some odd reason.

Even so resorting to such ancient magics was not something that should be taken lightly but the fact was, in his mind at least, England was all important, so Harry Potter needed to return.

For certain to accomplish this magic would need to be taken to call forth Harry Potter from wherever he was and into his true form. Unknowingly by doing such this would allow the one who had been raised as a member of the Ayeleid, the Alteran's brother race, to circumvent the rules.

Getting past those rules involved mortals and were usually merely temporary passes but what Dumbledore was unknowingly about to bring about was so much more than that perhaps if he intended to consult Moody he might have found out before hand. Such was unfortunately not the case not that it was likely that the aging headmaster would be prepared to change his course of action once he had decided on it.

Hands delicately traced the ornate curves of the symbol, compared to what Gotham's caped crusader was going to do this was different, Dumbledore didn't intend to summon the god he intended to summon the being in truest form.

In other words instead of an avatar or a synthesis, he wanted to bring the fullest form to be present on earth.

One of the Ayeleid's brightest minds and the cause for its inevitable downfall would very soon reappear in regular reality in his fullest form.

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Sol, Earth, High Orbit, USS Atlas

General Jack O'neill was hardly pleased, as if the Goa'uld controlling the galaxy, well the part of it which had been seeded with stargates which was about half, was bad enough there was another race who were supposedly, the descendant of the Alteran believed it was in fact the case, the ones responsible for the Ancients destruction in the Milky Way galaxy, and now Daniel and Vala had managed to get the attention of a new set of Ancients…. Oh and a ship had shown up around the earth, far to quickly for him to change out of his dress uniform from the meet and greet with dignitaries at that stupid Washington Dinner.

With disclosure a number of things had changed, and the descendent, inheritor of the Alterans was really missing the old days when he could just be back in the field fighting the good fight. Among those changes was him having to go to those blasted political meet and greets.

The goa'uld was perfectly polite, his clothes relatively normal at least in comparison to the average snake head's get up. Normal probably wasn't the right word, but the clothes weren't nearly as tacky.

"You're the new one," Remarked the Goa'uld in a graceful manner, grace not so much as like you got from etiquette class or whatever but more like the discussion with an old soldier that kind of grace like a dangerous cat. "The Alteran's successor not tainted by your ancestors flaw." He stated.

Really it was kind of on the creepy side.

"Were you aware Raiden has a dark side," The goa'uld continued onwards, "I knew him back them when we first found your lovely world."  
O'neill raised an eyebrow in his best Teal'c impersonation. "Really and what does that mean," He was going to be polite, main reason he acted like he did because he couldn't stand arrogant people.

"Oh indeed he's changed we all have. You see O'neill we were different the Alliance was powerful." He seemed to grow angry, "Anubis betrayed the circle however he had changed long before that." The system lord remarked, "It was a battle with the system lords during our improving of the human species."  
The 'ancient' snorted angrily, "Improving?" He questioned.

"Your kind was not any kinder," Allah reproached him with a smirk, "They treated mankind as little more than favored pets." The system lord paused, "We are getting off topic. Raiden changed I could feel it in his soul when he arrived back at Earth, do you know why Ra was never slain even with our powers by chance?"  
After a moment of thought O'neill shook his head the more he thought about that was surprising. How was it possible for Ra to have survived as long as he had when Raiden could hurl bolts of lightning that could destroy spaceships that were fully shielded. "No one let me in on that little secret."  
"The Tok'ra were never a real danger to Ra, he was arrogant but in a way with a good reason." Stated the system lord, "He slew his father who like Yu was a powerful magic user. That was where his ability to came in, he didn't have magic ability per say not like we did, but he was immune to it to an extent his advancement was focused inward. He was a canceler as we called him, a threat we saw him as but a necessary evil we had to tolerate for now."  
O'neill was slowly processing this, it would explain why Raiden was so pleased to kill the former supreme system lord.

"Ah you comprehend it." He seemed pleased, "Raiden arrived different his powers had increased immeasurably new things were obvious. It wasn't simply the addition of new physical powers augmentations if you will it was that he was getting stronger every time he killed,"  
The General seemed to be disbelieving.

"You don't believe me, the Alliance if you will was a group of us among us well there was Anubis, Sokar, Yu, Raiden, and myself amongst others." He paused allowing it to sink in, "Feudal society as you call we realize its inefficient however it does keep the species propped up, look at your ancestors and the Asgard peace weakened them toppled them from their height. We realized this at the time our technology had been mostly been established from finding other races bits and pieces here and there. So the Asgard were a danger so very much so at the time, but when the Alteran returned a few millennia ago it was then we realized that were endangered by there return and how much Raiden had changed was something we realized."  
O'neill looked surprised, they were talking as if the Alteran's return, from what he assumed was Atlantis, had been a bad thing but that didn't jive with what the going theory was on the situation.  
"The Alteran thought they still had the right to control the galaxy," Allah shook his head grimly, "We lost so much with that war and the one that followed. Raiden had ceased being a goa'uld long before the rest of the alliance had."

Ceased being a Goa'uld what the hell was he talking about, wondered the steadily more surprised O'neill.

"Has he told you about the Daedra yet, or the Aedra perhaps, he did, who do you think crushed the old empires of the gate builders in this galaxy?" Inquired the newly returned system lord.

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Raiden scowled, this was absurd utterly illogical Allah by all accounts should have been dead long ago. His survival could potentially be a very big problem, a serious thorn in his side and a nuisance to the plans as they stood.

"One would think you aren't happy to see me, my rival" The Saracen face of the man's one time host now his default physical form looked so irritably jovial it was utterly sickening to him.

The Shinto Kami weighed the option of summoning a torrent of lighting to the chances of his rival getting a shield up in time, or hitting him with one of those blasted wind swords of his.

It was a pity such was out of the question at the moment, he really would have liked to crush his former colleague.

"How long was it you spent time wasting developing the mobile suits?" Questioned the returning system lord, he seemed amused, "Developing the population realizing that the jaffa were by and far useless for such a thing." Allah paused, "But you pushed on of course as you always did. Stubborn, unrelenting."

All of them had long since realized the Jaffa were not as valuable as they had been, their original purpose, to serve as incubators for immature goa'uld was no longer needed, after all all it did was create potential competition.

Using magic, or technology, to improve one's body was not something unique to Raiden and Anubis alone. Though admittedly in the case of the prior it hadn't been a voluntary or planned procedure. Now that all those system lords were immortal there was literal interest in propagating the species especially when those new members might well try and kill them.

Of course that issue hadn't been something the, new, supreme system lord had been worried about after the synthesis.

Raiden shrugged dismissively, "What does it mattered the time were the development of such weapons where it could be exploited has long since passed. You and Anubis were the principal opponents to such a mass production project." He remarked pleased that he had been proven right on the issue. "In the end I was correct, though bringing the others populations up to stuff hasn't been easy I'll concede."

"Yes you always have been one to admit that there would always be problems when it came to gaining strength." The returned system lord nodded, "The times have not changed so much they aren't so different from the days of the alliance."

-

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As it stood the recent change in galactic situation had thrown the council, at least the Goa'uld System Lord's High Council and the Tok'ra, into his disarray.

Allah's return boded ill for the plans and the timeline for the prior, especially with the chance of an Ori attack, and complicated the worries of the Tok'ra.

Well it stood the Tauri would be worried as well however they were having personnel issues Raiden's endorsement of the US control of the Stargate, the reiteration of the treaty's stipulation that it be left in their care, it was worrying the Chinese and as such they were raising a fuss.

Right now it was more pressure on other people, their government attempting to influence the other nations around them India was worried, either they would capitulate or ask for help. The same was the case with the other nations in Asian field of influence for the middle kingdom.

Stargate affairs was being addressed by the UN, or rather they were attempting to bully their way in. It wasn't simply the Chinese. OPEC and their developing nations they both disliked the changes that were occurring.

The nations of OPEC had lost their major consumers, well China was still devouring oil by the barrels full. The United States had introduced their new battery on a massive scale and the OPEC's attempt to gouge had encouraged the shift.

In the developing nations of earth who had the same voting rights as the big nations in the international body. They didn't like the fact they were falling so far behind the status of the 'first world'.

Warships were in space. The gods existed. Strength was held by the developed nations. It was true that all three of these were truth.

Magical civilization was another issue that needed to be deal with they intended to leave them alone because they were, because they would be easy to subjugate, but with the changes in the non magical world it was utterly infuriating what was going on.

The dread father smirked stroking his chin despite there being some complications, not all of which were minor things were still going well. Getting past the other former Ayelied had not been easy but it had been doable, then again he'd surpassed them, that wasn't to say they weren't a threat if he wasn't careful.

Still even some unexpected complications, some of which could be potentially severe problems in the future, had cropped up there were other events which had the potential to be extremely useful.

Magical society on Earth was an issue; it was quite different than what he had known growing up in the Ayelied Star Empire but that mattered little.

Earth would probably be distracted shortly, whether or not the Ori showed up in this galaxy if that happened it could be a bother, though a useful one, with their own internal fractures to deal with.

In the event the Ori did show then more than likely it would be a repeat of the destruction of the Ayelied Star Empire. The Alterans weren't really an issue those who ascended weren't powerful enough one on one to challenge them, the Daedra or Aedra, and wouldn't try hence why they were left alone it wasn't worth the bother.

Whether a civil war would occur on Earth was not certain, and really another world war as they were called was quite unlikely though as always possible, it could happen. As it stood there were simply so many high tension political issues any one of which could start a conflict.

The ship that the Alteran, O'neill, was commanding appropriately named it would seem given that vessel might well and the other craft would be insuring the safety of the world or could very well cause the world to shake.

He leaned back there was still a great deal of work to be done in preparation if indeed the last of the Ancient superpowers returned, to say nothing of other threats. There was also little doubt that the wizards were hosting agents of the other gods amongst their ranks and that more than anything could be a dangerous problem given Wizarding kinds abilities.

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Chapter Conclusion

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Helltanz's Notes: Dumbledore's actions cause the beginning of Arc 3 to start, Allah isn't so much a big bad as someone whose a threat but also at the same time a valuable ally against the worse enemy.

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End file.
